Toronto Police: attack on girl in hijab did not happen

Toronto Police have ended their investigation into an alleged assault on a girl, saying the described incidents didn’t happen.

Officers responded to a call in the Birchmount Rd. and Bay Mills Blvd. area in Scarborough around 9 a.m. Friday.

An 11-year-old girl told officers she was walking to school when a man approached her from behind, pulled off the hood to her jacket and cut her hijab with a pair of scissors.

She described him as Asian and said he ran away after the incident.

The girl and her brother spoke to the media from their Pauline Johnson Public School on Friday.

Their mother and members of the Toronto District School Board also spoke, condemning the incident.

The story garnered media attention in Canada, the U.S. and globally.

On Monday, police issued a release saying investigators had determined that the events described never happened.

Police were investigating this as a hate crime.