Auto store employee recounts narrowly escaping Toronto-area capturing rampage

As bullets tore by way of a Milton, Ont., auto store on Monday, Muhammad Shiraz Afzal was satisfied he would not make it out alive.

With the crack of gunshots echoing within the room round him at MK Auto Repairs, all he may do was preserve his head down on a desk.

“I used to be simply ready to die,” he informed CBC Information in an interview on the store, which is about 50 kilometres west of Toronto.

Afzal was certainly one of three folks shot on the auto store round 2:50 p.m. that afternoon. Enterprise proprietor Shakeel Ashraf, 38, was killed, whereas a 28-year-old worldwide scholar who was additionally working there stays on life help and isn’t anticipated to outlive.

That is on high of Toronto police Const. Andrew Hong, 48, who was fatally shot about half an hour earlier in Mississauga, in addition to a carjacking sufferer who’s in steady situation in hospital, however suffered “life-altering” accidents, based on police.

Investigators have recognized Sean Petrie, 40, because the suspect in all of the shootings. Petrie himself was later killed throughout an encounter with police in a Hamilton Cemetery.

WATCH | Afzal describes the assault:

Afzal stated he was coping with a buyer on the store’s entrance desk when he began listening to noises coming from the again. At first, he thought they had been regular sounds you would possibly hear at an auto store, like hammering or welding.

However because the noises acquired nearer, he realized somebody was firing a gun.

Sufferer shot within the leg

“That man got here proper right here in entrance of me,” he stated, gesturing to a spot within the store, “and shouted at me and began firing.”

“First hearth was this one, which went by way of my leg,” he stated, pointing to a bullet gap within the desk.

The person then fired one other shot that just about hit his head however missed, leaving a bullet gap on the opposite aspect of the desk.

“Then third shot he made once more he tried my head — that hit that man,” he stated, referring to the 28-year-old worldwide scholar.

There was no manner out — till he heard the “click on click on click on” of the shooter’s empty clip.

“Then I acquired up and began working outdoors,” Afzal stated. As quickly as he acquired out, he requested one other particular person from the store about his boss, however he was informed that it was unlikely Ashraf would survive.

“He was a wonderful particular person, wonderful boss, wonderful brother,” Afzal stated. “Very caring, very type.”

Police attempting to piece collectively motive

Officers supplied extra particulars Thursday concerning the collection of shootings that unfolded over a number of hours on Monday afternoon and appealed to the general public for details about the shooter.

Petrie had an extended prison historical past that included convictions for assault, armed theft and different violent offences, police say. In 2007, he was positioned on a nationwide registry as somebody with a excessive chance to reoffend in reference to an incident two years earlier.

He was estranged from his household, police say, and was briefly employed on the auto store owned by Ashraf. 

Petrie allegedly used a handgun within the shootings, which is now within the possession of Ontario’s police watchdog, the Particular Investigations Unit, as a part of its probe into his deadly encounter with police in Hamilton.

Investigators say they’re nonetheless attempting to piece collectively a transparent motive for the shootings.