Toronto Police brass, mayor pay tribute to slain Const. Andrew Hong

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Officials are paying tribute to slain Toronto Police Const. Andrew Hong, 48, who was ambushed and fatally shot Monday as he ate lunch in Mississauga.

After visiting Hong’s colleagues at Traffic Services on Tuesday morning, Chief James Ramer and Mayor John Tory spoke about the tragic loss at the beginning of the Toronto Police Services Board meeting.

“We’ve lost an outstanding member of the service, an outstanding individual in Andrew,” Ramer told the meeting. “We give our deepest condolences to his family. Our membership is going to work through it and we will honour him appropriately.”

The now-dead suspect is believed to have shot Hong just after 2 p.m. at a Tim Hortons near Argentia Rd. and Winston Churchill Blvd.

There was a moment of silence Tuesday in the auditorium at police headquarters as members of the board stood to remember Hong, who spent 22 years with the service.

Among those there were Toronto Police Association president Jon Reid and Acting Supt. Matt Moyer of Traffic Services, where Hong worked.

“A lot of them that we met this morning at Traffic Services had to get up this morning and come to work,” said Tory. “They were going out to work after we saw them. And they continue to serve us and to protect us.”

Tory also spoke about the grief and loss officers are feeling – especially from what he observed as they gathered en mass to salute and pay tribute as Hong’s body was transported Monday evening from Mississauga to the coroner’s office in Toronto.

“We are all trying to ensure that the family – the police family and the immediate family of the police officer — understand that all of the people of the City of Toronto are grieving,” Tory said.

“If you lose a member of your own family it deeply affects you, and I think a lot of people would feel that same way about their work family.”

Jim Hart, chair of the Police Services Board, told the meeting: “We know that the Toronto Police Service is very much a family in many ways. The loss of one officer has a deep and profound impact on the entire organization.”

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The province’s Special Investigations Unit is probing the circumstances of a deadly interaction in a Hamilton cemetery between Halton Regional Police and the suspect in Hong’s death.

Less than an hour after his slaying in Mississauga, the suspect was said to have travelled northwest to a Milton auto-body shop where three more people were shot — including Shakeel Ashraf, who died.

That eventually led to the interaction further west in Hamilton.

Hong leaves behind his wife, two children and his parents. Funeral arrangements are being organized by the Toronto Police Service.

slaurie@postmedia.com