Suspect arrested after allegedly performing Nazi salute before assaulting woman in Toronto subway

A man alleged to have performed a Nazi salute before assaulting a woman in a Toronto subway has been arrested.

It was reported by Toronto police in a statement that at approximately 12:30 on Saturday, a woman was sitting on a bench at Lawrence Station when a man approached her before assaulting her and fleeing the scene.

Sarah Gillis, who said that she is not Jewish, identified herself as the alleged victim and said that a man approached her while she was sitting on the platform and asked her twice: “Are you Jewish?”

Ms Gillis added: “He then did a Nazi salute and asked me if I knew what it meant. So I said to him, ‘Have a nice day.’ That’s when he said, ‘You are a Jew,’ and he came towards me.”

Ms Gillis alleges that the man then put her in a headlock before being pulled off by another man. The suspect reportedly then fled the scene by boarding a subway train.

“I wanted people to be aware that he was still out there and although he was saying hateful things towards Jewish people…it wasn’t necessarily Jewish people that he was targeting,” Ms Gillis said. She added: “It could’ve [been] anyone because personally I’m not Jewish but I still became a victim of him.”

Police released images of the suspect on Saturday and announced on Sunday that an arrest had been made. According to a police spokesperson, the suspect is the same individual who was arrested in connection with two previous antisemitism-related incidents.

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Image credit: Toronto Police Service