Hours after the horrific terror attacks in Paris, a stand-off unfolded between police officers and a suspected suicide bomber in a Mississauga neighbourhood, the Toronto Sun has learned.

French officials were still counting their dead when Peel Regional Police officers ended a frightening confrontation by opening fire on the 26-year-old man at Golden Orchard Dr. and Grand Forks Rd. — near Bloor St. and Dixie Rd. — shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday.

In the aftermath of the shooting, police downplayed the incident saying only that the call involved “an emotionally disturbed person.”

But the presence of the service’s Explosive Disposal Unit and heavily armed Tactical officers at the scene suggested a far more serious threat was afoot.

A source, who asked not to be named, revealed to Sun on Monday that the bomb squad responded because the man in question was wearing what appeared to be a suicide vest and holding what looked like a triggering device.

It was not immediately known if the vest actually contained explosives.

But suicide bombers and gunmen killed 129 victims in Paris less than eight hours earlier. So police, who were on heightened alert, took the threat seriously.

Uniformed officers shot the suspected suicide bomber four times, the source said.

Fortunately, the shooting was not followed by an explosion.

The man, whose nationality was not immediately clear, was rushed to the trauma centre at St. Mike’s hospital in Toronto. He is expected to survive.

Another source said investigators have since determined the vest was not real.

Officially, police are not commenting because Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit is probing the shooting. The SIU has been tight-lipped about the incident.

“I can tell you that investigators are working to determine the circumstances leading to the shooting as well as particulars of the incident,” SIU spokesman Jason Gennaro said. “At this point, the investigation is ongoing and I’m unable to confirm details or comment further.”

He said the shooting victim remains in hospital.

The SIU, which probes all serious injuries and deaths involving police, has assigned three investigators and two forensic investigators to the shooting, Gennaro said.

Family told to head to the basement for protection

Isabel Pavao went to bed Friday night with the deadly terror attacks in Paris still fresh in her mind.

But when the Mississauga woman was awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call from Peel Regional Police telling her to take her family to the basement, she never imagined there might be a connection to the horror that transpired 6,000 kilometres away in France.

“The idea of a bomb never crossed my mind,” Pavao told the Toronto Sun Monday.

“It never dawned on me that we weren’t safe,” she added. “I just figured as long as we did what we were told that everything would be OK.”

Her phone rang around 1 a.m. Saturday. She answered sleepily and the woman on the other end confirmed her address.

“She told me to get myself and my family down to the basement immediately,” Pavao recalled. “And she said she’d call back when it was safe.”

She and her husband, Vic, woke their two kids, 12 and 15, and brought them downstairs.

Pavao, who assumed cops must be chasing suspects through her neighbourhood, had no idea that a potentially explosive situation was unfolding just steps from her home.

She said police called to give the all clear about 90 minutes later and her family returned to bed.

Pavao woke in the morning to find her street buzzing with police activity.

Only after talking to neighbours did she learn police had shot a man, 26, wearing what was thought to be a suicide vest.

“I didn’t realize it was so close to our home,” she said.

The occupants of at least one other home near the intersection of Golden Orchard Dr. and Grand Forks Rd. were also told to take cover in their basement.

Many area residents slept through the commotion

chris.doucette@sunmedia.ca