TORONTO

An 18-year-old man on a stopped TTC streetcar was fatally shot by a Toronto Police officer shortly after midnight Saturday on Dundas St. W. near Bathurst St., the Special Investigations Unit said.

And a man who witnessed the incident posted a video of the event to YouTube shortly afterwards.

Martin Baron, 47, was trying to cross the street to his Bellwoods Ave. home with his wife and 19-year-old son when they encountered the halted 505 streetcar.

“We saw suddenly cops coming around the front with guns, we thought ‘Oh! Back up, back up,’” Baron recounted.

He recorded the incident, standing roughly 15 metres away and saw a person on the streetcar holding a knife, he said.

“We heard the cops just yelling over and over, ‘Drop the knife, drop the knife!’” Baron said.

Then he heard nine gunshots followed by what sounded like a stun gun.

“A cop entered the back doors of the streetcar, went up to the front and soon after that I could see them performing CPR,” he said.

But Baron said he never saw any attempt by the man to attack the police officers while he was there, nor did he see any other weapon.

He uploaded the video to YouTube around an hour following the shooting and used Twitter to say, “To witness a shooting is horrible, but in front of your house?”

Warning: Graphic content





The province’s Special Investigations Unit is probing the shooting, as it does any time a civilian is seriously injured or killed through an interaction with police.

Police were alerted to a man on a westbound streetcar near Dundas St. W. and Bellwoods Ave. around 12:10 a.m. Saturday, the SIU said.

“What we understand is that there was an interaction involving the male and officers with the Toronto Police Service,” SIU spokesman Jasbir Brar said near the scene of the shooting. “As part of that interaction, a police firearm was discharged and the male was struck.”

The victim was taken to St. Michael’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Family members identified him to the Toronto Sun as Sammy Yatim.

Yatim's uncle Majed Yatim told the Sun the teen had "no history of any mental illness except maybe teenage angst."

The SIU would not confirm the number of shots fired or the deployment of a stun gun.

When asked about the video, Brar said she had not seen it but investigators “are working to identify that video.”

“Exactly how many shots were fired, what weapons in terms of what the deceased was holding, that’s again a part of the investigation,” she said. “I really can’t comment on whether (the shooting was) a warranted reaction or an unwarranted reaction.”

A TTC spokesman confirmed passengers had emptied the streetcar by the time of the shooting.

SIU director Ian Scott encouraged witnesses to contact the agency.

“We would be grateful if anyone who witnessed this incident would contact the SIU, particularly those with video imagery,” he said.

Anyone with information should call the SIU at 416-622-2342 or 1-800-787-8529, ext. 2342.