Toronto police have arrested a 37-year-old man after five people were allegedly assaulted aboard TTC buses over two days in Scarborough.
Police say officers responded to reports of an assault on a TTC bus in the area of Huntingwood Drive and Midland Avenue on Wednesday, Sept. 23. Following an investigation, detectives determined there were four victims in total, including three females and one male.
It was also determined that the same suspect allegedly assaulted another passenger aboard a TTC bus in the McCowan Road and Alton Towers Circle area on Thursday, Sept. 24.
In both cases the victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries and were not known to the suspect.
Michael Ye, 37, of no fixed address was arrested on Thursday and charged with five counts of assault. He was scheduled to appear in court on Friday.
Police not yet investigating hate crime
The alleged attacks initially came to public attention after a teenage girl was punched in the face while getting off a bus near Finch Avenue and Midland Avenue, according to Emad Ali, office manager of the North American Muslim Foundation (NAMF).
Ali noted the three young women in the first incident were South Asian and one was wearing a hijab.
Ali said one girl who was allegedly punched, a student at Iman Academy, suffered bruising around one eye and was taken to a hospital.
“She was getting off the bus … and as she was getting off the bus somebody punched her in the face,” Ali said in an interview with 680 NewsRadio.
He added that the victim is recovering from both physical and psychological trauma.
“She’s a young girl. She’s still in her teens,” he said.
After speaking publicly about the incident, Ali said he was contacted by another alleged victim who reported being assaulted by the same individual on the same bus.
“What happened was that the bus kept going southbound,” he said. “… I went back to my office and I got another call and this was from a second victim.”
Ali said he was told the suspect then allegedly targeted a third young woman before passengers alerted the bus driver.
“They told the bus driver what was happening, the bus stopped, and the police was called, and the person just got off the bus and ran,” he said.
Ali said all three female victims were young women and appeared to have been targeted during the same sequence of events.
The incidents prompted concerns within the Muslim community about whether the assaults may have been motivated by hate.
“We were open to the possibility that it might be a hate crime because all three girls were South Asian,” he said. “But we’re keeping our options open. We don’t want to prejudge the situation.”
Police say the case is not currently being investigated as hate-motivated, though the Toronto Police Service’s Hate Crime Unit has been notified.
“Regardless, it is alarming,” Ali said. “It is something that needs to be taken care of because no community here needs to be living in that type of fear.”
The investigation remains ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact Toronto police.
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