Note: If the ID of the supsect is released, would someone please post it? Thank you.
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=canada
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=jewelrystore
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=school
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1848783/posts
“Heist puts schoolkids in crossfire”
Sun Media ^ | 2007-06-12 | Chris Doucette
Posted on 06/12/2007 2:59:46 AM PDT by Clive
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “It was an afternoon of terror in an upscale Thornhill neighbourhood yesterday as a gunman fleeing a jewelry store heist opened fire on a cop in a schoolyard and then led police on a high-speed chase in a stolen vehicle with two hostages.”
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “The pursuit continued into a park behind Leo Baeck Day School, a private elementary school for about 530 Jewish students, and that’s when the situation became extremely dangerous.
“During the foot pursuit, the suspect turned and fired a weapon at the officers and one officer returned fire,” Perks said.
Nobody was hurt in the melee but terrified kids, who were outside for gym class, ran for their lives into the school when the gunfire erupted.
Sierra Plachi, 10, was among the 20 or so kids playing soccer when the gunman and police exchanged gunfire nearby. She was still visibly shaken when she was finally able to run out to her mother’s awaiting arms later in the day.
The girl said the man was a few metres away and he appeared to point the silver gun he was carrying at her gym teacher, whom she knows only as Sharitz.
Sierra said the teacher positioned himself between the armed man and his students and yelled at the kids to “run, run, run” inside the school.
“We’re all so proud of him and how brave he was, that he would put our lives ahead of his,” Sierra said, bursting into tears as she became overwhelmed by her emotions.”
Thanks to all linkers/researchers. Placemark bump.
UPDATE...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070613.ROB13/TPStory/TPNational/Ontario/
“CRIME: BEDLAM IN VAUGHAN
Sleepy burb rattled by chase, shootout
Robber attempts to hold up jewellery store, grabs two hostages and takes on police with pellet gun”
ALEX DOBROTA
June 13, 2007
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Monday at noon, few shoppers other than Catholic school students on lunch break bustled around Promenade Mall, in a tony part of Vaughan, north of Toronto. Soft rock music greeted store clerks punching in for what was shaping up as a quiet afternoon shift.
At a nearby school in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood, Grade 4 pupils were basking in the midday sun during an outdoor gym class.
And, across the schoolyard’s fence, landscape workers repaired the gardens of well-to-do homeowners.
But the suburban idyll was shattered when a man armed with a pellet gun burst into one of the mall’s jewellery stores. He started a skirmish with police that sent students into a lockdown as pellets whizzed in the schoolyard. And he took two hostages from a nearby house, leading officers in a high-speed chase that rattled the sleepy quarter.
No one was injured and both hostages escaped. Still, the botched robbery strained the nerves of residents, school staff and mall employees, few of whom had heard of crime in the neighbourhood apart from the occasional theft.
Police arrested a 30-year-old man, Quincy Cave, with a history of run-ins with the law. Mr. Cave now faces 30 charges including various weapons offences, breach of recognizance, and possession of marijuana.”