Yorkdale Mall was placed under a hold and secure after a group of young people robbed a Rolex store Friday afternoon, coincidentally after a seperate group of teens committed violent robberies in the city's west end.
"I would absolutely say it's unique," Toronto Police Cst. David Hopkinson said. "It's just an unfortunate occurrence that we happen to have two teams of what appear to be teenagers doing fairly serious robberies."
The first was reported at 3:10 p.m., near Rexdale and Islington, and within an hour, two other pharmacies had been robbed.
In each case, it was four young men, wearing masks, all armed with firearms, with Hopkinson saying violence was involved including not only on store employees, but in one case, a woman in her 70s was assaulted.
Then not too long after the third incident, police initially reported possible shots fired at the Rolex store, causing it to go into hold and secure.
It turned out a seperate group of four young men robbed it, using a hammer to smash the display cases, but there were no injuries to staff and all four were eventually arrested.
"All of a sudden, I heard people screaming and there was a whole crowd of people running outside," shopper Jae said. "As soon as I saw that, I knew something was wrong."
Hopkinson said they've made one arrest in the west end robberies.
"I believe we are making some headway, I believe more arrests are imminent," he said.