A resident of Toronto’s Lytton Park neighbourhood is in hospital after being shot during a violent home invasion during the early morning hours of March 11.
Officers were called to a home on Glencairn Avenue at 2:15 a.m. following reports of a shooting and home invasion, Toronto police said in a brief social media post.
“A group of males entered a residence” and an occupant of the residence “was shot by one of the suspects,” police said on X.
The suspects fled the area and the victim was taken to hospital with a “non-life-threatening injury,” according to the post.
The Epoch Times contacted the police for more information but was referred back to the social media post. Police declined to confirm media reports that said five masked suspects broke into the home or that a man who lived in the home was shot in the leg after struggling with the suspects.
Investigators have yet to provide a description of the suspects or a motive for the home invasion.
Police were then called to a report of a second shooting less than half an hour later.
Officers responded at approximately 2:40 a.m. to an apartment building in the North York district where they found a man in the hallway with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the leg, a separate X post said. The victim was transported to hospital for treatment, police said.
Police did not say if the two shootings were related.
Armed home invasions have risen in Toronto in recent years.
One such incident last fall at a home near York Mills Road and Leslie Street saw four masked men break into a home in the middle of the night and demand the homeowner open her safe. The mom of two, Maryam Alavinasab, was dragged by her hair to her closet with a gun pointed at her neck. Once the intruders determined there was no safe, they fled with handbags, jewelry, and money.
Alavinasab told Global News she was afraid to remain in her home because the intruders broke in despite the house having a full video surveillance.
Toronto police keep a record of specific types of crimes. The force doesn’t track home invasions specifically, but statistics for 2026 show there had been 1,190 break and enters this year as of March 8. That is up 3.5 percent from the same timeframe in 2025, when there were 1,150 break and enters.
Statistics for 2026 also show there were eight shootings in the city between the first of the year and March 9, three of them homicides.
Two of the shootings occurred in January and five were in February. One shooting had been recorded in March as of the beginning of the week.
There have also been 4,174 assaults, 1,331 car thefts, 553 sexual offences, and 420 robberies.
