In other news, I this move:
The city of Toronto is celebrating the Raptors’ first victory in franchise history and ahead of Monday’s parade, the Warriors took out a full-page ad in the Toronto Star to congratulate the champions.
“The Golden State Warriors congratulate the Toronto Raptors on their historic achievement and bringing the 2019 NBA Championship to the City of Toronto,” the ad reads, with a photo of Steph Curry hugging Kyle Lowry after Game 6 of the Finals.
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/sports/warriors-take-out-fullpage-ad-in-toronto-star-to-congratulate-raptors-parade-nba-finals-142912934.html
Classy indeed... too bad you posted this literally right after there was a shooting at the rally - about a 100 yards from where jingle.son and I were standing. Detailed post below.
First, the good. What a turnout!!! The City was predicting 1.5M-2M people for the parade and rally. Estimates are now that it was more like 3M.
Pics of the massive crowds during the parade:
Now that not so good ... from that last pic, imagine all three surrounding streets, and the back half of the square (area under the arches) emptying out in a span of a couple of minutes.
The parade was supposed to start at 10am, run about a 4 mile route, and end up at City Hall / Nathan Phillips Square, with the rally starting somewhere around 12:30. Jingle.son and I arrived around 8am, and found a decent enough spot at Nathan Phillips Square, standing on the area that is normally a shallow water feature (ice rink in the winter) that was boarded up with plywood. Well, the City did a shit planning job on the parade route - no barriers, so the 1M+ people taking that in were filling the street, and it took 5.5 hours for the busses to get to the rally. Organizers hadn't planned for this, and didn't have a 5 hour 'party' planned for the Square. So, it was pretty much 60k+ people standing around for 5 hours. Some people in the front of the square had been there since Saturday/Sunday. Here was the scene:
The stage is at the top of this pic, and the square is essentially split into two sections, separated by the TORONTO (which are about 7' high). Jingle.son and I were about 3/4 of the way back in the area behind TORONTO (on a direct line behind the N).
The team finally gets on stage around 3:30, and after all the intros, the Mayor is doing his schtick, and then the back 1/2 crowd starts stampeding. The shooting was just outside the square, in the bottom right corner of that pic. So, imagine about 15,000 people already shoulder-to-shoulder now running like hell (from right to left), and nobody knowing why really. Considering the city had a vehicle 'event' about a year ago (a car ran down pedestrians on a busy sidewalk), I'm trying to scan for a vehicle plowing thru the crowd and trying to decide which *way* to run. jingle.son thankfully had the presence of mind to grab his backpack (where my keys were), and luckily we didn't really get separated. After about 30 seconds or so, things seem to be settling down a little. I'm trying to scan the crowd to see where the 'danger' is - I can't see any cops really rushing around acting frantic, and some in the crowd were looking in an area back behind the square.
Couple of pics that show how empty it got - in about 30 seconds.
A few minutes later, jingle.son and I try to make our way back to an area where we can see the stage, because as I said, there didn't seem to be any danger. Some people were saying gunshots, but I could see a few cops just observing and
walking around, so I figured there wasn't anything to be too concerned about - as did a lot of others, as the back 1/2 filled up again. So we end up pretty much under the 'left' arch, about 1/2 back. Then a minute or so later, ANOTHER stampede, and jingle.son and I got seriously separated in it. Fortunately, he found me, and at that point, we got the fuck out of dodge. Headed down to the train station, and caught the train home. As were were leaving, THAT's when we saw a shit-ton of cops all frantic and running around on the streets surrounding the Square. The surrounding streets (which had also been PACKED) were virtually empty.
Apparently 4 people shot (non life-threatening), but the cops did take down the suspects pretty quick. Some twitter vids show it, but again, they don't really do justice to the palpable fear that also swept over that area of the crowd. They did stop the rally for a moment to make an announcement about an emergency - I suspect out of concern that the WHOLE crowd didn't start seeing tweets about a shooting and then a full-fledged panic sweep over the crowd.
https://twitter.com/CityNews/status/1140713635091746818 (this is what jingle.son and I got caught up in)
https://twitter.com/mnizamdin7/status/1140710644389490693 (one of the side streets that was PACKED not 1 minute before)
https://twitter.com/jpags/status/1140707542114414593The 5th video down in this report is the best I can find.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5400259/shooting-toronto-raptors-championship-parade/So yeah, that sucked. Left the house at 5:30am, got home at 8pm, and got about 2 minutes of the rally after standing around for 7.5 hours just waiting.
But, we've got a cool story to tell at least!