As Yosif Al-Hasnawi lay dying on a downtown Hamilton sidewalk earlier this month, shot after trying to help a stranger, witnesses say paramedics dismissed his pain and accused him of acting.

It took nearly 40 minutes for the 19-year-old to be taken to hospital on Dec. 2, and when the ambulance pulled away, there were no sirens flashing. Mr. Al-Hasnawi died in hospital that night.

The paramedics' response, which has already sparked two government reviews, is now the subject of a rare criminal investigation.

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Hamilton Police announced Wednesday that after a review of the preliminary evidence in the case, a criminal investigation into the medical response by paramedics is "warranted."

The probe comes as a relief to Amin Al-Tahir, director of the Al-Moustafa Islamic Centre, where Mr. Al-Hasnawi had been attending a celebration with his family the night he was shot.

"We need to get to the bottom of this, to see what we can do in the future to prevent such tragedies from happening again," he said Wednesday.

Mr. Al-Hasnawi, who was a student at Brock University, stepped outside the centre after the event and intervened when he saw two younger men allegedly accosting an old man. He was shot in the stomach and his younger brother ran to a nearby store to call 911.

Mr. Al-Tahir was amongst those pleading with the paramedics to take the teen to the hospital after they arrived around 9 p.m. "His dad lay down beside him, and [Yosif] tells him in Arabic, 'I have difficulty breathing,'" Mr. Al-Tahir recalled Wednesday.

"We start to scream at the paramedics, 'Please take him to the hospital.' But we saw they didn't take him seriously."

He said the paramedics insisted he'd been shot by a pellet gun and was fine. When they did transport him, the ambulance went to St. Joseph's Healthcare. The city's lead trauma centre where gun-shot victims are typically treated is Hamilton General Hospital.

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Hundreds of mourners paid their respects at a memorial service for the teen at City Hall earlier this month. A vigil was also held at Brock University, and a scholarship is being established at the school in his name. Mr. Al-Tahir said the teen's body was buried in Iraq this week.

The criminal probe will be handled by the Niagara Regional Police Service "in order to ensure a fair and impartial investigation is completed," Hamilton Police Service Constable Jerome Stewart said Wednesday.

Constable Stewart could not say how long the investigation is expected to take and said police will not be commenting further.

In addition to the criminal investigation, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is also investigating this case. The City of Hamilton had launched its own internal probe, though a spokesperson said Wednesday that it will now "pause" that investigation in order to co-operate fully with Niagara police. Asked about the paramedics' status in the interim, spokesperson Allison Jones said "the City of Hamilton is not able to provide employment status details of city staff during an active investigation."

Mario Posteraro, head of the local paramedic's union, said it welcomes this investigation "provided it's conducted in an expeditious, thorough and fair manner, to bring a level of comfort and closure to the family – and to regain the public's trust, which I think has been lost during this unfortunate and tragic event.

"We continue to express our condolences and sorrow to the family. … They're deserving of some answers, and hopefully those answers will be forthcoming very soon."

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Mr. Al-Tahir said he has scheduled an appointment to provide a statement to police.

Tom Raczynski, another bystander on Dec. 2, said he had been brought in by police about a week and a half ago to share his recollections.

"It's about time," he said of the criminal investigation.

Mr. Raczynski said he was drawn out of his home after hearing screams and saw Mr. Al-Hasnawi lying on the ground.

"He was lying there complaining he was hurting and they kept saying he was faking," Mr. Raczynski said of paramedics and police at the scene. (The Hamilton Police Service has said that police actions that night do not meet the threshold for an SIU probe.)

"The one paramedic kept saying 'Oh you're a good actor,'" he said. "I just thought it was disgusting. Like somebody's shot, you take him in to the hospital. You don't leave him lying there."

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Two men, Dale Burningsky King, 19, and James Matheson, 20, have been charged in connection with the homicide.

Police are still looking to talk to the older man who Mr. Al-Hasnawi was trying to defend.

With reports from The Canadian Press