Toronto collision: Video shows suspected driver telling police 'Kill me' after van ploughs into crowd killing nine people

Driver of the white rental van is in custody

The suspected driver of fatal the Toronto smash was caught on video after the incident telling police: “I have a gun in my pocket. Shoot me in the head”.

As police revealed nine people had been killed and 16 injured in the incident, cell phone footage posted on social media caught police with guns drawn telling the driver to get out of vehicle.

He could be heard saying: “I have a gun in my pocket.” When the police repeated their command to tell him to step out of the van, he could he heard telling the officers to “kill him”, adding: “Shoot me in the head.”

As emergency responders rushed to deal with the incident, that happened as office workers in the centre of Toronto were heading out to lunch, officials at the city’s Sunnybrook hospital said they were treating five people who were described as being in a “critical condition”, with two others whose condition was said to be “serious”.

While police did not immediately say whether the incident deliberate, Reuters said at least one witness said the driver appeared to be appearing to deliberately target people as he drove for up to one mile on the busy sidewalk.

Another witness, Ham Yu-Jin, told the Toronto Star: “I was in my car and I saw a white van going on the sidewalk. I heard a big bang and the van hit a bus shelter and hit people. I turned my car on and chased the van. I’m so lucky, I could have been hit.”

He added: “This is not a car accident.”

Toronto Deputy Chief Peter Yuen said the vehicle, a white Ryder rental van, had struck a crowd of people. Images from the scene showed police standing next to bodies that had been covered in plastic body bags or sheets.

Canada’s public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, declined to comment on what may have motivated the attack.

“The investigation is at a stage where no further information can be confirmed at this point,” Mr Goodale told a news conference. “The police are conducting obviously their thorough investigation to determine what happened and why it happened, the motivations involved.”

Ryder System Inc spokeswoman Claudia Panfil confirmed that one of the company’s rental vehicles had been involved in the incident and said the company was cooperating with authorities.

The new agency said there had been a series of deadly vehicle attacks in the United States and Europe, including an October 31 attack in New York that killed eight. Isis encourages its supporters to use vehicles for attacks.

Toronto is currently hosting a Group of Seven foreign ministers meeting about 20 miles away from the scene of Monday’s deaths.

The crash occurred at the corner of Yonge Street and Finch Avenue in the north end of the city, said Toronto Police spokeswoman Meaghan Gray.

A man who gave his name as Ali told CNN he saw the van and that the driver appeared to have been targeting people.

“This person was intentionally doing this, he was killing everybody,” the man said. “He kept going, he kept going. People were getting hit, one after another.”