Toronto school shooting kills one

May 23, 2007

In Toronto, Canada's largest city, a high school shooting this afternoon at around 2:35 p.m. killed one teenager.

A grade 9 student, Jordan Manners, 15, was shot in the chest while near the swimming pool of C. W. Jeffreys Collegiate Institute in the Jane-Finch neighbourhood of Toronto. The boy was found lying in a school hallway at approximately 2:35 p.m. ET with a single bullet wound to the chest. He was then rushed to Sunnybrook Hospital, but died soon after the incident.

The school quickly went into lockdown mode and students stayed in their classrooms for hours, though several came out in stretchers and were taken to Sunnybrook Hospital for hyperventilation. Police searched the building for weapons but found none. Shortly after, an Emergency Task Force (ETF) crew entered the building. An officer was stationed in every room during the lengthy lockdown. The school was taken out of lockdown at approximately 6:15 p.m. and students are being bused on TTC buses to a nearby middle school. "Students have a right to a safe school environment. It's shocking that such [an event] could take place in our schools," said Bill Blair, Toronto Police Chief.

Mayor David Miller interrupted the city council to make a brief speech to the councilors when he heard the news. "I never thought that we would have to have a moment like this in Toronto when the mayor had to rise and say that a student of a high school in our city was found shot," he said.

This is the first major violent incident to take place at an Ontario high school since 2000, when four students and one staff member were wounded in a knife attack at Cairine Wilson High School in Orléans, Ontario.

This is the 13th Toronto killing involving gun-violence in 2007, and brings up Toronto's murder rate to 26 so far.  This story has new developments. Updated information can be found here