TDSB, students honour victims at one month anniversary of deadly van attack

Exactly one month after a deadly attack in North York, some of the area’s youngest residents – who were forced into lockdown while police and paramedics dealt with the aftermath of the van rampage – will have a chance to express their sorrow.

On April 23, a white van mounted the curb of a sidewalk on Yonge Street in North York and plowed into unsuspecting pedestrians. Ten people were killed and 16 more injured. A few blocks away on Hillcrest and Kenneth avenues a local high school was placed under a Hold and Secure order. When students were told there was a van attack and that it was intentional, many of them thought the incident was a simple car accident. It wasn’t until later that reality sank in.

“After school I started seeing all these news reports and people saying to be careful and crying,” said Brian Na, a Grade 12 student at Earl Haig Secondary School.

The Toronto District School Board will pay tribute to the victims of this tragic event Wednesday night at their regular board meeting, honouring the employees who went out of their way to help victims and students. They will also feature the work of students from Earl Haig Secondary School.

One of those pieces of work is a film, created by Na, which pays tribute to the victims. Na said that when the magnitude of the attack set in that Monday afternoon, he wasn’t immediately shocked or sad.

“There are so many things going on around the world that when it happened in my own back yard I didn’t really feel it, and that actually did kind of scare me,” he said. “This never happens in Toronto, in my home, especially a couple meters from where I lived.”

He woke up the day after the attack at 4:45 a.m. and decided to walk out to Yonge Street and start filming.

“The first time I didn’t feel it. That made me upset. And then it started to grow on me that night and I needed to do something. It kept lurking. I thought, ‘you know what, just go film,’” he said. “I didn’t have a plan. I just shot everything. When the news started to drip out about the victims, the video just started to make its own story.”

The video begins with scenes from Yonge Street. Police officers wander the route the van took as it mowed people down between Hendon and Poyntz avenues and city workers power-wash the sidewalks, cleaning up the blood from the victims. The other half of the one-and-a-half-minute video focuses on community support, and the growing memorials and flowers being left in honour of those killed.

The last scenes fade to black, with writing that says “I needed to show my support through the best way I knew how, by making a video. Rest In Peace. #TorontoStrong.”

One Grade 11 Earl Haig student remembers the day when the school announced one of the victims, Renuka Amarasingha, was an employee of the school. Amarasingha was a nutrition services staff member with the TDSB and had just finished her first day of work at Earl Haig when she was killed.

“I remember one day there was an announcement,” Grade 11 student Michael Samoilov said. “(It) came on to inform the school that the worker did die at this event and I remember our class was silent. We had a moment of silence because we didn’t know what to do.”

Samoilov wrote an article in the Globe and Mail at the end of April about the attack. He said he can’t imagine what would have happened if the driver of the van decided to plan the event during his school’s lunch hour. “I think everyone realized this could have been us.”

Samoilov remembers walking home from his co-op position in the late afternoon on April 23, saying that Yonge Street was completely empty. “It was like it was quarantine,” Samoilov said. “It was deserted, quite surreal.”

He said he was notified of the attack by his brother, who called him from university to make sure he was okay. Knowing how much it meant to have someone check in on him, he started messaging friends and family, checking in to make sure everyone had made it home that day.

Samoilov hopes the community can recover and rally together.

“I just really hope, for myself and everyone else, that this experience has helped make some kind of connection or make people more thoughtful,” he said. “We will never forget.”

A week after the attack, on April 27, police identified the 10 people killed in the van attack:

Eight of the 10 victims were women. Two were foreign nationals.

A memorial at Olive Square and Mel Lastman square continues to grow, with friends, family and complete strangers laying down flowers, candles, and messages of hope and support. Typically, memorials are allowed in parks for 30 days, but Toronto Mayor John Tory said he is considering creating a permanent site for people to pay their respects.