Toronto cop’s murder comes after two-and-a-half years of festering hate and terror

Now that Chief Myron Demkiw and U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra say there is a connection to the consulate shooting, everything must change

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Published Jun 11, 2026  •  4 minute read

Toronto Police and the SIU outside of a highrise on Martha Eaton Way in North York where Const. Marc Pinizzotto, 43, was shot and killed in the line of duty while conducting a search warrant on Thursday June 11, 2026. Photo by Ernest Doroszuk /Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

This evil murder of a Toronto cop didn’t just come from out of the blue – it came as a result of rising crime in the city and was born out of world-wide terror.

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“These are paid, foreign elements that are attacking our city and causing this kind of death in our city, to one of our police officers and way beyond random shootings at schools and synagogues,” City Councillor Mike Colle said Thursday.

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“It is really part of an internationally conspired attack on the people of Toronto, especially the Jewish community,” he said. “Now, we have lost a police officer.”

The violence has been festering since the Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“I have been witnessing this non-stop for two-and-a-half years and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that this is connected to Iran and agents here and people trading hate,” added Colle, a Toronto deputy mayor, who with fellow councillor James Pasternak has been sounding the alarm on this issue for months.

Councillors Mike Colle (R) and James denounced the firebombing of a Jewish deli — Deli Foods store — as an act of terrorism, on Jan. 8, 2024. (Jack Boland, Toronto Sun)

The protests that started soon after 1,200 people were slain in Israel and led to people spewing anti-Jewish hatred and the shooting up of Jewish schools and synagogues, vandalizing of Jewish businesses and firing rounds into the U.S. consulate.

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Now, a Toronto cop trying to execute a search warrant to seize guns and evidence connected to all of that has been murdered.

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No one should be surprised

Nobody can say they were not warned.

That’s two cops killed in the line of duty in Ontario in two days.

On Tuesday, OPP Const. Tarun Bali, of Brampton, was killed while trying to lay down a spike belt down near Hearst in Northern Ontario. And early Thursday, in North York came the deadly shooting Const. Marc Pinizzotto during an exchange of gunfire.

Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto (BAYT) synagogue on Clark Ave., in Thornhill, was targetted by gunfire late on Friday, March 6, 2026. Photo by Supplied

These two egregious murders come on the eve of Toronto hosting six FIFA World Cup soccer games.

“The investigation that led to the search warrant where Police Constable Marc Pinizzotto was tragically killed concerned a number of shootings, including the shooting at the United States consulate on University Avenue,” Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said Thursday.

The warrant executed before the shooting may be linked to the United States, said U.S. ambassador Pete Hoekstra at an unrelated trade conference Thursday morning.

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This is a surprise to nobody.

“It is just reminding us of the incredible violence we face dealing with these shootings that occurred at the consulate, the shootings that have occurred at our synagogues and schools and now we have lost a police officer,” Colle told the Toronto Sun. “It is just utterly disturbing and disgusting that a police officer should lose his life.”

Thursday’s horror came as a result of what Demkiw called “several search warrants executed (Thursday) morning.”

This was the ‘no knock’ dangerous kind. The five-year member of the Emergency Task Force and 18-year veteran of the service was shot in the chest and later died.

The alleged shooter, Nicholas Bennett, 19, was also shot up to nine times and while he fights for his life in hospital, first-degree murder charges will come his way if he heals up.

Not harmless protest but terror

“It is important to note that there is one outstanding suspect. He is identified as Zara Jabbi, 19-years of age,” said Demkiw.

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This slaying changes the endless demonstration game going forward. Much of the public is telling police and the courts to round all of these players up, try them and jail them and, where necessary, deport them.

It’s not harmless protest. When it’s threatening American and Jewish Canadian’s lives, it’s terror.

When an Iraqi terrorist with ties to radical players in Iran, who was caught by the Americans, was telling investigators Iran proxy agents were behind the Toronto synagogue and consulate shootings, it was clear this is not local and it’s international.

Zara Jabbi, 19, is wanted in connection with the shooting at the U.S. Consulate on Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Photo by Handout /Toronto Police

As the Toronto Sun’s Chris Doucette reported, the U.S. Justice Department case claims 32-year-old Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi “is an operative of Kata’ib Hizballah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” who was “involved in nearly 20 attacks on ambulances, schools and synagogues” since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury Feb. 28.

Many were asking was this a proxy to the Islamic Republic of Iran orchestrating the shooting on the U.S. consulate and a Toronto synagogue?

Accused ‘terror commander’ Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, 32, an Iraqi national, is escorted off a plane by FBI agents in New York, New York on Friday, May 15, 2026. Photo by FBI New York /Facebook

At least four GTA synagogues have been shot at, innocent Jewish citizens have been struck with gel capsule pellets, there have been shootings at Jewish schools as well as other forms of vandalism.

And the Toronto Police Services Board has asked for an independent investigation into claims raised by former Insp. Hank Idsinga in his book High Road regarding possible antisemitism within the ranks.

This is a Canadian crisis that didn’t come out of nowhere but as been brewing for years.

Now one of Toronto’s finest cops is dead.

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