A longtime CBC radio producer who was the victim of a random attack in Toronto’s Greektown neighborhood last week has died, the public broadcaster has confirmed.
On Wednesday, CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson identified the victim of the Jan. 24 attack near Danforth and Jones avenues as former producer Michael Finley.
Thompson said Finlay died Tuesday of “medical complications” following the attack.
“Michael will be remembered as an extraordinary storyteller, documentary maker and editor,” said Thompson. were experiencing the pinnacle of the craft.”
Police previously said a suspect was walking along Danforth Avenue around 3:35 p.m. on Jan. 24 when he ran into another man, now understood to be Finley, and assaulted him. The victim fell to the ground and suffered serious injuries.
On Wednesday morning, police confirmed that the victim had “tragically” died, but did not provide further details.
Police have not ruled the attack a homicide at this stage and said an autopsy will need to be performed before such a determination can be made.
“No one seems to know anything other than he was waking up shopping on the Danforth last week in the middle of the afternoon and someone just walked up behind him and knocked him to the ground and then disappeared. That’s all I’ve heard,” Frank Koller, who worked with Finley at the CBC, told CTV News Toronto on Wednesday.
In the statement, the BBC said Finlay spent 31 years with the public broadcaster before retiring in 2010.
The statement noted that Finley is the “driving force” behind the documentary program Dispatches, and also worked as an editor on The World of Six during his time at the CBC.
Koller worked with Finlay for about 20 years but lost touch with him after his retirement. He said that as a Sunday Morning producer, Finley could be “absolutely a stickler” but ultimately he was someone most reporters wanted to work with because he “made your journalism better.”
“When it came time for your stories to be reviewed before they went on the air, you kind of hoped that Michael would be the one to do the vetting process. It often hurt when he was done with you, but you always knew the story would be better for him,” he said. “He loved the English language and helped you communicate the English language in a way that made your journalism better.”
The attack is just the latest case of apparently random violence in Toronto in recent weeks.
On January 20, an 89-year-old woman was also hit while walking on a sidewalk in downtown Toronto. She was later pronounced dead and a suspect has been charged with manslaughter in her death.
“It’s a tragedy, there’s just no other word to describe it and when you hear about these tragedies I can only speak for myself, it underlines my own determination to try and do better when it comes to safe streets , for programs to address the root causes of these things and to do better when it comes to some of the underlying contributing circumstances as well,” Mayor John Tory told reporters Wednesday when asked about the Greek City incident.
Police previously released a surveillance image of a suspect in the assault investigation, who remains unidentified.
The suspect is described as a man about 6 feet tall and in his 20s with a thin build. He was last seen wearing a red paper mask with flames, a black sweater and black pants.
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