4 police officers fired guns in Queen subway shooting: SIU
Posted December 14, 2013 8:00 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Ontario’s police watchdog says four officers are believed to have fired their guns in a police shooting inside a downtown subway station that sent a young man to hospital and commuters scrambling for safety.
The Special Investigations Unit’s Carm Piro says a total of nine officers responded to an incident around 8 p.m. Friday at Queen Station after calls about a “suspicious person” on a subway train.
He says the person had a weapon, but wouldn’t elaborate.
Piro says it’s believed four of the officers discharged their weapons, sending an 18-year-old man to hospital where he was reportedly in stable condition.
The SIU says the man’s his family isn’t consenting to his name being released.
Witness Kevin Chan told reporters it was a frightening and chaotic scene onboard the subway train.
“It was like people panicking, screaming and then people saying, ‘Get off’… Some people were crying,” he said.
Other witnesses said several shots were fired after police ordered a man, who appeared to be in his early 20s, to drop a weapon. These accounts, however, have not been confirmed by police or the SIU.
The Yonge subway line remained shut down from Bloor Street to Union Station until about 1:45 p.m. Saturday.
The SIU, which is Ontario’s police watchdog, said it had assigned nine investigators and four forensic investigators to the case.
The agency is automatically called in to review cases where police actions result in injury or death.
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With files from Toronto Staff
