TORONTO - An apologetic man reported to be suicidal tried to stab a paid-duty officer moments before he was shot on a downtown street, witnesses say.
The 24-year-old man writhed in pain on Shuter St. just east of Yonge St. for a few moments before he became still and was carried by police to nearby St. Michael’s Hospital, witnesses said.
In a highly charged message to his dispatcher, a paid-duty Toronto Police officer watching over a construction site reported shots fired.
Moments later he reported there was a man armed with a knife at the intersection.
The officer then reported the man apologized and that he appeared suicidal. Witness Brendan Rawlins said he saw the officer fire twice in the 1:37 p.m. incident near the Eaton Centre.
He said the man tried to stab the officer before the shooting. “I just saw two shots,” Rawlins, 22, said. The man “had something in his hand” and “charged at the cop” a distance of about five metres before the shots were fired, the University of Toronto music education student said.
He said the wounded man “wasn’t making a lot of noise, he was just squirming.”
Rawlins said the man was carried to the hospital and he saw that his clothing on the left side was darkened by blood. He couldn’t make out where the man was wounded.
“It was pretty shocking,” he said. Area resident Brian O’Brian said he too heard a couple of shots. “I was standing outside … and I heard it,” he said. “I saw everybody at the corner in awe.
“I saw a shank. It didn’t really look like a knife but it was an object that you can definitely stick in somebody’s neck,” O’Brian said.
The Special Investigations Unit has taken over the case.
“We’re gathering some preliminary information here to get a sense of what has transpired here,” SIU lead investigator Allan Eaton said.
The 24-year-old man writhed in pain on Shuter St. just east of Yonge St. for a few moments before he became still and was carried by police to nearby St. Michael’s Hospital, witnesses said.
In a highly charged message to his dispatcher, a paid-duty Toronto Police officer watching over a construction site reported shots fired.
Moments later he reported there was a man armed with a knife at the intersection.
The officer then reported the man apologized and that he appeared suicidal. Witness Brendan Rawlins said he saw the officer fire twice in the 1:37 p.m. incident near the Eaton Centre.
He said the man tried to stab the officer before the shooting. “I just saw two shots,” Rawlins, 22, said. The man “had something in his hand” and “charged at the cop” a distance of about five metres before the shots were fired, the University of Toronto music education student said.
He said the wounded man “wasn’t making a lot of noise, he was just squirming.”
Rawlins said the man was carried to the hospital and he saw that his clothing on the left side was darkened by blood. He couldn’t make out where the man was wounded.
“It was pretty shocking,” he said. Area resident Brian O’Brian said he too heard a couple of shots. “I was standing outside … and I heard it,” he said. “I saw everybody at the corner in awe.
“I saw a shank. It didn’t really look like a knife but it was an object that you can definitely stick in somebody’s neck,” O’Brian said.
The Special Investigations Unit has taken over the case.
“We’re gathering some preliminary information here to get a sense of what has transpired here,” SIU lead investigator Allan Eaton said.
