Dozens of officers gathered in downtown Toronto on Thursday morning for a procession in honor of the police K-9 who was shot and killed in the line of duty earlier this week.
The trainer of the dog, Sergeant Brandon Smith, and his family joined members of the Emergency Task Force, Motor Squad, and Toronto Dog Services for a procession in honor of Bingo, the two-year-old German Shepherd who, according to the police, died while tracking a suspect in Etobicoke on Tuesday night.
Mounted unit members lined up on the street in front of an emergency veterinary clinic where they had taken Bingo, and everyone saluted as a group of officers carried the dog's body covered with the Canadian flag.
At the Toronto Police headquarters, flags were flown at half-mast, and other police facilities in the city also lowered their flags in honor of the police K-9.
A spokesperson for the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) told reporters on Wednesday that the police responded to an apartment building in the area of Dixon Road and Kipling
Avenue around 8 p.m. to locate and arrest a suspect wanted for second-degree murder.
The suspect, a 44-year-old man, fled and was later located in the backyard of a house on Kingsview Boulevard, the SIU added.
The last images of Bingo were captured on video just when the unit was locating the suspect in the backyard of the residence.
The suspect fired at the officers, who did not return fire. At some point during the interaction, Bingo was shot and killed, and an officer shot and injured the suspect, according to the SIU. The man was taken to the hospital for treatment, and the SIU is now investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting involving the officer.
The police confirmed that the suspect will be charged with second-degree murder in connection with a fatal shooting on The Queensway earlier this week.