A man who died in a flurry of London police gunfire after an officer was wounded by a crossbow was known to police, while his wife and mother of his children is spending Christmas behind bars.

In pre-dawn darkness, officers with a search warrant descended on the red-brick bungalow — a house they’d raided a decade earlier when they turned up a cache of guns and ammunition.

Dead is Samuel Maloney, 35, a father of two young children who lived at 56 Duchess Ave., in the Old South neighbourhood.

His common-law wife, Melissa Facciolo, 35, is in police custody, so far facing one charge of possession of a prohibited weapon, specifically a crossbow.

Facciolo appeared in court Friday by video link from the police headquarters, noticeably distraught and unable to secure a bail hearing until Wednesday. Her children are a two-year-old boy and a six-month-old girl who is still breastfeeding.

“She’s a mother of two who just is absolutely distraught and wants to know how she’s going to get her baby fed and what’s going to happen over Christmas,” her lawyer, Phillip Millar, said outside court.

What happened inside the small red-brick house remains unclear.

Ontario’s police watchdog agency, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), is investigating but said little Friday.

Sources said heavily-armed police from the emergency response unit moved in on the bungalow shortly after 6 a.m.

The SIU said there was a confrontation between a man, 35, and police.

One officer was wounded, his injuries minor, deputy police chief Steve Williams said at a news conference later.

Williams declined to answer questions about the shooting, why police were there in the first place or about anyone else in the house. He directed all questions to the SIU.

Neither London police nor the SIU would identify the man who died, but Facciolo’s lawyer confirmed it was Maloney.

Maloney lived at the home with his longtime partner, Facciolo, and the couple’s children.

Neighbours said officers in tactical gear surrounded the Duchess Avenue home before dawn.

“At least one shot was fired. The man was struck and he was pronounced dead at the scene,” said SIU spokesperson Jason Gennaro.

A post-mortem examination is scheduled Saturday in London, he said.

One neighbour said he was outside with his coffee and heading inside when he heard what sounded like six gun shots.

“I heard ‘bang, bang,’ then four more — ‘bang, bang, bang, bang,” said the man, who declined to give his name.

Neighbours reported seeing Facciolo, toddler in arms, being escorted from the home by a police officer who was holding her baby.

Paramedics were there but didn’t transport anyone to hospital, said Middlesex London EMS duty manager Steve Cook.

The deadly encounter rattled residents in the quiet pocket of Old South, just three blocks from Wortley Village, an area the Canadian Institute of Planners named Canada’s best neighbourhood in 2013.

“We didn’t really know what was going on and (there) were all these lights flashing everyone,” said neighbour Brad Trojan, who watched the raid unfold from his house. “It was really surprising to see. At that hour of the morning, it was unnerving.”

As investigators remained at the scene Friday, they taped off nearly the entire block, including sidewalks, with the caution tape extending up to the front porches of many homes in the vicinity. Unable to access the road, one resident reached by phone said he parked around the corner.

The SIU has assigned five investigators and three forensic investigators to probe the case. The agency, which has the power to lay criminal charges, investigates all cases of civilian death or serious injury involving police.

This isn’t the first time police have swooped in on the Duchess Avenue home. Several neighbours reported seeing multiple police cruisers at the property within the past few months and several times over the years.

Otherwise, the home is typically quiet, the lawn and bushes overgrown, and the occupants are rarely seen outside, said neighbours.

However, Maloney was facing charges related to an incident at a Buddhist temple in east London in June. He was out of custody but making routine court appearance on one count of obstructing police, two counts of assaulting police, mischief under $5,000 and fail to leave a premises.

In 2007, police raided the single-storey house and seized a large weapons cache, including four loaded guns and 13,000 rounds of ammunition.

The weapons were legally registered but not properly stored, police said at the time.

Maloney, then 26, was charged with five counts of unsafe storage of a firearm and ammunition.

The 2007 seizure came after Canada Border Service Agency officers tipped off London police about a couple they arrested trying to bring 22 banned, high-capacity ammunition magazines into Windsor.

Melissa Facciolo, then 25, was charged with smuggling prohibited goods.

Facciolo is the owner of Citrus Design Studio, a London-based graphic design business she has operated for the past 16 years, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The last time London police shot someone was Jan 15, 2009, when officers chasing fugitive Joseph Barnes from an Oakland Avenue complex fired multiple shots at him after he pulled an imitation gun.

Barnes, who was struck five times, survived.



A 35-year-old man was shot dead after a confrontation with police shortly after 6 a.m. Friday morning on Duchess Ave near Edward Street in Old South. A police officer was also injured. Derek Ruttan/The London Free Press

We will update this story as more information becomes available.