Various Artists News

(3/24/00, 7 a.m. ET) - 'N Sync visited Toronto, Canada on Wednesday (March 23) to promote its new album, No Strings Attached, much to the delight of the thousands of fans who showed up to greet the group at a downtown HMV record store. However, the band's appearance was marred earlier in the day when gunfire erupted across the street from the record store where fans had lined up in hopes of getting autographs from the band (LAUNCH, 3/23).

Toronto Police Sergeant Laurna Kozmik told LAUNCH that the shooting was completely coincidental and not related in any way to 'N Sync or HMV. "There was a fight that broke out on Young Street that originally was believed [to have] stemmed from the arcade. Unfortunately, Young and Gould is in the same area that HMV is -- on Young Street -- and there was a large concert going on with thousands of young girls waiting to get a glimpse of 'N Sync," Kozmik said. "And unfortunately there were gunshots and the young man was injured in his leg, and the victim walked off."

Sergeant Kozmik added that the police arrived on the scene to find no victim and no perpetrator. "When the police got there, there was no scene. We got a call that there were sounds of gunshots coming in the area of HMV; they couldn't find any sign of suspect or victim, and they went about their regular business. Then we got a call from St. Michael's hospital that that a victim had arrived at their emergency with a gunshot wound to his leg, so then the investigation obviously started again."

Sergeant Kozmik went on to say that when the victim was located, he was not willing to speak to police, leading them to believe the shooting may be gang related. "Unfortunately, when we have these situations the victim will not even speak to us and does not want to cooperate with us," Kozmik explained. "We do have, which is kind of interesting, because of the event at HMV -- it was a large media event -- and there was a lot of media that were taking pictures. We have pictures of the victim and hopefully, in somebody's camera, there were pictures of the suspects. But at this point, until the investigators get down to the nitty-gritty, we won't be able to identify the suspects."

When bands like 'N Sync visit Toronto, it's great for tourism and for the city's image, and the Toronto Police don't want an isolated incident to scare people away. "We don't need this type of activity that happened with the shooting to mar our reputation and we certainly are going to be taking every step to prevent it from happening in the future," added Kozmik.

-- Jason Gelman, New York

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