Teen dead following Saturday night stabbing at Keele subway station
A 16-year-old boy is dead and a man charged with murder following what police say is an unprovoked stabbing inside Keele subway station on Saturday night - the third homicide at a TTC station in nine months.
On Saturday, March 25, at 8:58 p.m., police attended a stabbing call at the station. Police say the victim had been in the station sitting on a bench when a man approached him and stabbed him without provocation.
The victim - Gabriel Magalhaes, 16, of Toronto - was taken to hospital via emergency run by Toronto paramedics with critical injuries; he later succumbed.
Police say Jordan O'Brien-Tobin, 22, of no fixed address, has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
Keele station was closed on Saturday night due to a police investigation following the stabbing, but has since reopened, the TTC said in an early Sunday morning tweet.
Danger on Toronto's transit system gained attention after a number of violent incidents, including:
- A woman set on fire at Kipling Station in June 2022 who later died;
Daylight stabbings at Kennedy and Warden Stations in October 2022;
- One woman killed and another seriously injured in a stabbing incident at High Park Station in December;
- Six people assaulted at St. Clair Station later that month;
- What police described as a hate-motivated assault at Bloor-Yonge Station in January of this year;
- A man arrested for allegedly trying to push someone onto the subway tracks at the same station two days later;
- A woman charged with attempted murder after a January stabbing on the Spadina streetcar;
- A man stabbed in the face with a broken bottle at Chester Station in February;
- Another person pushed onto the tracks at Bloor-Yonge in February;
- A woman stabbed at Spadina Station in February;
- A knifepoint robbery at Runnymede Station.
The wave incidents spurred Toronto police to deploy 80 officers, working overtime, on the TTC following a series of violent incidents on the transit system, starting in January. However, police announced on March 13 that it would be ending the extra patrols.
The move was met with criticism, with some saying it did not address the root causes behind the violence.
Magalhaes' death is Toronto's 12th homicide of the year.
Edward Djan is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @EdwardDjan1