Man arrested for hate-motivated assault in Etobicoke
Posted April 23, 2021 5:30 pm.
Toronto police have made an arrest in what they’re calling a hate-motivated assault that happened last month in Etobicoke.
They say a 50-year-old woman was walking in the Lakeshore and Superior Avenue area, east of Royal York on March 30th in the middle of the afternoon when she was approached by a stranger who made anti-Asian comments.
Investigators arrested 49-year-old Jeffrey Spanton of Toronto, who has been charged with assault.
Spanton appeared in court on Thursday.
Hate crime complaints and arrests in Toronto jumped last year, with Jewish and Black people the most common targets, according to an annual police report released yesterday.
The report cites the COVID-19 pandemic first reported in Wuhan, China, and the police murder of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, as contributing to the spike in hate-crime incidents.
The service called the increase unprecedented.
In all, 210 complaints were reported to police, up from 139 in 2020 – a 51 percent jump – and well above the average of 152 incidents per year noted over the past decade.
