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Stitches A photo of Artem’s bruised eye, with stitches seen underneath his brow. (Supplied) <\/p>\nA Toronto man is warning others to be on the lookout after he said that he was punched in the face by a stranger while walking to lunch in the city\u2019s downtown core this week. <\/p>\n
Artem had just left his office, located near Union Station, and was making his way to grab a bite at the Eaton Centre with a friend on the afternoon of March 10 when, suddenly, he said he was punched in the face by a complete stranger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not looking (at) him,\u201d Artem, who CTV News Toronto agreed to identify by first name only due to safety concerns, said in an interview. <\/p>\n
He says his gaze was turned on his friend at the time, as they were chatting while crossing northbound on Wellington Street near Yonge Street. Artem recounted how the punch was so strong that he was knocked out for a few seconds, with him becoming aware of the situation as he watched his attacker walk away.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy continues to walk, very fast. I was turning and I already could not see him,\u201d Artem said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t stop. He just gave me a blow and like almost (ran).\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a group of people nearby that flagged a police cruiser, Artem said. When officers arrived, Artem said he was told another similar incident had occurred minutes before. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey started to assess me and the police guys, they had a radio\u2014like their internal radio on\u2014and basically they told that in like another minute, it was another incident on the following intersection,\u201d Artem said.<\/p>\n
Stitches A photo of Artem’s bruised eye, with stitches seen underneath his brow. (Supplied) <\/p>\n
Police confirmed to CTV News Toronto their dispatcher responded to two incidents at around the same time on March 10. Before Artem\u2019s attack, Toronto police say they were called to the area of Bay and Front streets for a male suspect who had \u201crandomly\u201d hit someone at 11:57 a.m. on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cOn March 10th at a similar time, police were waved down at Yonge and Wellington by an adult male who had been hit by the same male suspect,\u201d Amy Davey, a media relations officer for the Toronto Police Service, said in an email. <\/p>\n
Artem said he could not get a good look at the suspect\u2019s face, but said he is about five-foot-nine, had light or blonde hair, a medium build, and was wearing a blue coat at the time. Police said no arrest has been made in this investigation, adding there is no suspect description available for release.<\/p>\n
Paramedics took Artem to St. Michael\u2019s Hospital to get assessed for the large cut right under his left brow, and he said he got stitches for it. In a photograph shared with CTV News Toronto, thick black stitches can still be seen under Artem\u2019s brow, with red and deep purplish bruising underneath. <\/p>\n
The incident has caused Artem distress, as he says he feels like he can\u2019t leisurely walk downtown. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf I was looking around maybe I was able to escape it, and if I was not, like, so relaxed,\u201d Artem said.<\/p>\n
Artem wanted to share his story to spread awareness, so that others who work in the area can be on the lookout or stay on high alert. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not even a sketchy area. You do not expect stuff like this,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Toronto man is warning others to be on the lookout after he said that he was punched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":["post-535911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}