Police said the girls, aged between 13 and 16, seem to have met online before meeting in person on the night of the attack, possibly for the first time:
They were arrested near the crime scene shortly after midnight on Sunday:
The man, who has not been named, had been living in a shelter for the homeless at the time of the assault:
"He does have a very supportive family in the area, so I wouldn't necessarily call him homeless, maybe just recently on some hard luck," Toronto Police Detective Sergeant Terry Browne told reporters:
Officer Browne said the girls are believed to have assaulted and stabbed the victim in Toronto's downtown core, an area filled with high-end condominium towers and hotels, following an altercation. Police believe the man may have been preyed upon because he was spotted carrying alcohol:
A group of bystanders flagged down emergency services after finding the man with stab wounds, Mr Browne said. The man was rushed to a nearby hospital with serious injuries and died shortly after. Police recovered several weapons, but did not say exactly which type:
Police said the teenagers "swarmed" the man, adding the attack was a prolonged "back and forth" on the victim involving all eight of the teenagers:
The actual incident, proper, lasted almost three minutes long, Mr Browne said. So, walked away, walked toward, walked away, walked toward:
The attack came just hours before a mass shooting in Vaughn, Ontario, a small city just outside of Toronto. The sudden violence has unnerved some in Toronto ahead of the holidays:
Police have not called the teenage girls a gang. The "anomaly" of this attack, Detective Browne said, is that the girls all came from different parts of the city and did not appear to have met in person prior to the attack. Three of the girls had prior run-ins with police:
"We don't know how or why they met on that evening, he said:
A female resident of a nearby homeless shelter told the CBC: the victim was stabbed in the stomach after trying to protect her when the girls approached her for alcohol:
I didn't know if they had a knife or what. I was just scared," the woman said, explaining how she walked away from the attackers and sought refuge in the shelter:
In a statement, Toronto Mayor John Tory said he was "deeply disturbed" by the case:
The accused will now spend Christmas in jail as they await a 29 December court appearance. None of the suspects can be identified under Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act, but police said three of the suspects are 13 years old, another three are 14, and two are 16:
Investigators believe the girls may have got into other fights on Saturday evening and have appealed to the public for more information:
A man who shot and killed his ‘neighbors’ in a Canada apartment complex was embroiled in a legal dispute with the building's board:
According to court documents, the 73-year-old filed several lawsuits against the board that a judge later described as "frivolous:
The board of the building in Vaughan, Ontario also took him to court in 2018 over alleged threatening behavior:
Five people were killed and another was injured in the shooting on Sunday:
Police said three of the victims were members of the apartment complex's board, though they have not disclosed a motive:
On Tuesday, police named the victims as Rita Camille 57, Vitoria, Panza, 79, Russell Manor, 75, Helen Manor, 71 and Naveen Dada, 59:
Another person, a 66-year-old woman, was injured and taken to hospital: The woman's husband told the Canadian Press that she was expected to survive following emergency surgery:
The alleged gunman, Francesco Villi, was shot and killed by a responding officer in a hallway inside the apartment complex:
He had been due to appear at a court hearing on Monday where the condo corporation was requesting his eviction from the building temporarily:
The board had also asked a judge to find Villi in contempt for violating a previous order not to contact them, according to the Toronto Star newspaper:
Court documents show the building corporation filed a restraining order against the suspect in November 2018, due to his "threatening, abusive, intimidating and harassing behavior:
Three of the deceased victims - Ms Camille, Mr Manor, and Mr Dada - are named as defendants in a lawsuit that the suspect filed in 2019 against the condo's board, in which he accuses them of "deliberately causing harm" towards him:
The lawsuit was called "frivolous" and "vexatious" by a judge in July 2022 and dismissed:
Social media accounts under the alleged gunman's name feature several videos - one of which was posted a few hours before the shooting - in which he expressed grievances with the building's board because of an electrical room underneath his apartment:
Police first responded to reports of a shooting at an apartment building in Vaughan, 30km (19 miles) north of Toronto, at 19:20 (00:20 GMT) on Sunday:
Police Chief Jim MACS, ween described a "horrendous scene" when officers arrived at the apartment complex: The five victims, he said, were killed in three separate apartments:
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