Toronto’s top cop says the decision not to arrest a suspect involved in a violent Bridle Path home invasion last week after he arrived at a hospital with a gunshot wound was not a “failure,” but instead informed by the evidence investigators had at that time. “They responded to the hospital as they would when people walk into the hospital with a gunshot wound, which happens in the city from time to time, and they advanced the investigation with the speed and flow that was available to them,” Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said on Monday. Officers were called to a home on Hyde Park Circle, near Bayview and Lawrence avenues, in the affluent residential neighbourhood just before 4 a.m. on Thursday Oct. 29 after three masked suspects armed with handguns and a hammer broke in. Police said the suspects encountered the homeowners, a husband and wife, and their two adult children, before a struggle ensued. The man, who CP24 previously identified as 75-year-old David Morton, and his 26 and 28-year-old daughters were shot. Morton, and his wife, 64-year-old Doriana Zohil-Morton, were also struck by a hammer. Toronto police did not identify the victims. All four victims were rushed to hospital, with some sustaining “life-altering” injuries. On Saturday, Toronto police said that “some” of the victims have been discharged from hospital, without revealing who is still receiving care. Investigators previously said that the home does not appear to have been targeted. Morton, who is the CEO of a Toronto real estate services company, released a statement following the incident, saying, in part: “It is difficult to put into words the trauma of experiencing something so horrific in the one place where everyone should feel safest: their own home.” The Bridle Path is one of Toronto’s wealthiest neighbourhoods and is home to numerous multi-million dollar mansions that sit on large lots that span acres. Drake is one of the neighbourhood’s residents and his home is located just 700 metres from the residence where the home invasion took place. Speaking alongside Demkiw, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow described the incident as an act of “brutal violence.” “The chief of police has my full support to: number one, apprehend the suspects as quickly as possible and number two, to work with the local residents’ association and the people in the neighbourhood to prevent further home invasions. I also want to wish the Morton family speedy recovery.” Why was the suspect not arrested? The suspect who attended St. Joseph’s Health Centre shortly after the home invasion took place has been identified by police as 23-year-old Toronto resident Daijohn Richards. He is currently wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant. Investigators said he was shot in the shoulder during the break-in by one of his alleged accomplices. Toronto police were informed about his visit to hospital as per Ontario’s Mandatory Gunshot Wounds Reporting Act. However, by the time he was discharged later that afternoon, police had not yet established his connection to the crime. In a statement issued by police following that revelation, officials said officers “immediately recognized the potential connection between the home invasion and the individual who showed up at hospital with a gunshot wound.” “But recognizing a potential suspect and having enough evidence to arrest them are two different things. Suspicion alone isn’t enough. Police need reasonable grounds, supported by evidence, to make an arrest,” they said. Demkiw added that the investigators “in the middle of the night” did not have information that an assailant had been shot during that home invasion. “We are following the evidence as it becomes available. Had there been evidence to allow us to do something different, that’s what would have happened,” he said. “I can tell you, from my perspective, there’s been no failure. There’s been nothing but exceptional police work, exceptional investigative steps taken. And what I would say to Torontonians is please rest assured that our police officers will be resource supported and they’re doing everything they can, giving the evidence that presents itself, in a timely way to hold everybody they can accountable.” Demkiw would not say if police were surveilling the suspect after he was released, citing the need to preserve the “integrity of the investigation.” In an interview with CTV News, CP24 crime analyst Steve Ryan said often plainclothes officers will follow a suspect if police do not yet have sufficient evidence to make an arrest. “They would follow him the entire time until such time that they had word from the investigators that he was now arrestable, because they had connected him to the Bridle Path (home invasion), or (determined that) he wasn’t part of it and at that point they would just leave,” he said, speaking hypothetically. Ryan said that while police will conduct 24-7 surveillance on some suspects, it is always possible that they will eventually lose sight of who they are following. ”It’s something you don’t like to see happen. But, in the realities of policing, it happens. It happens where you lose somebody that you were ‘spinning’ or surveilling. You lose them sometimes. Twenty-four-hour surveillance is difficult to do," Ryan said. The Bridle Path incident is the 119th home invasion reported to Toronto police in 2026, which marks a more than 30 per cent increase over the same time period last year. With files from Codi Wilson, Chris Fox, Bryann Aguilar, and Jermaine Wilson
