The anguished renovator who alerted police to a dazed man clad in a hospital gown lurking in the backyard of an east-end house last Friday says police did not need to kill him.

“From what I saw, this was uncalled for. There was no need to shoot him,” said Vince, who wouldn’t reveal his full name. “I don’t want the family to know it was me. I feel responsible. I’m still struggling to cope.”

The renovator’s remorse prompted him to break his silence about the shooting of 29-year-old Michael Eligon, an event he saw unfold in front of him on Milverton Blvd., near Coxwell and Danforth Aves., at 10:15 a.m.

The province’s Special Investigations Unit, the police watchdog, is probing the case and could lay criminal charges against the officer who fired the shots.

The renovator’s account falls in line with what other witnesses have told the Star, but his story reveals more of what happened before the shooting.

“It seems the victim didn’t have a chance,” the renovator said. “If he did something bad, like kill somebody, then I could understand. I thought there could have been pepper spray or a Taser. Or shoot him in the leg.”

Eligon was wielding what is believed to be two pairs of scissors after fleeing Toronto East General Hospital about four blocks away.

A clerk at a convenience store near the hospital suffered a small cut on his hand prior to that fatal shooting, and an officer suffered minor injuries at the scene.

Nothing has been revealed about Eligon’s mental condition at the time because the hospital is bound by privacy laws. Eligon’s family, when contacted by the Star, said they have no comment at this time.

The whistle-blower said police should have used other methods to take the man down because he didn’t look like a serious threat.

“More than anything, he looked afraid. He was scared,” the renovator said.

Vince said he is so disturbed by the events that he told the SIU that if he knew this would have turned out the way it did, he would not have called police.

“You guys just took a life, and now I feel crap because I was the one who called you over to help me so we can kind of sedate him somehow. That wasn’t the kind of sedate that I expected.”

What also bothers him is that after Eligon was shot three times at point-blank range, he said, the officers stomped on his prone body as he fell to the street.

“They were kicking him, stomping him. There was no need for that,” he said.

Then emergency workers began performing CPR.

Vince’s blood boils thinking about that. “So I am saying to myself, so you shoot him first and killed him, and now you’re trying to bring him back to life,” Vince said.

Eligon appeared confused when he appeared in the backyard of the house the renovator was restoring, Vince said.

“He was scared. … I saw the fear in his eyes. I had the window open and I said, ‘Are you okay? Do you need some help?’ He didn’t understand what I was saying to him. He seemed like he wanted to hide.”

When Vince ran downstairs, he lost sight of the man but heard rattling noises a couple of doors down.

When Vince ran to the front of the house, he saw a police officer at the intersection of Milverton Blvd. and Glebemount Ave., and whistled at him to come over.

The officer responded, walked behind the house and drew his gun.

“I said, ‘Wow, this is more a bit more intense than I expected,’” the renovator said.

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Moments later, Eligon was flushed out of a driveway two doors down and out into the street, where he was suddenly surrounded by almost a dozen officers who had come down the road, some in cars, some on foot.

They passed the correct house, and Vince pointed them to the right location.

When Eligon emerged from between two homes, he didn’t reply to their commands to stop, the renovator said. He was carrying what appeared to be scissors and was making a slashing motion with his hands as if to say, “Get away from me,” Vince said.

As he kept moving toward the middle of the street, an officer backed up and appeared to be cornered against a pickup truck parked on the street.

Meanwhile, officers were yelling: “He’s got a knife. He’s got a knife. Drop the knife.”

The officers had by this time surrounded Eligon, all with their weapons drawn.

At no time were the officers trying to talk him down, Vince said. “They were rushing him. Nobody was telling him, ‘You could hurt somebody,’” he added.

“You could tell he was panicking,” Vince recalled. “Everybody was screaming at him.”

The man then either lunged at the officer, or was pushed from behind, Vince said. That’s when the officer fired three shots in succession.

The renovator was disturbed, he said, to see the officers then stomping on Eligon, pinning his head to the ground.

The shooting followed a prior encounter at R&S East York Convenience, near the hospital, where Eligon had come in, silently roaming the store with a blank look, according to the clerk on duty at the time.

“He blanked out on me. He didn’t say a word,” the clerk, who wouldn’t give his name, told the Star. He showed a small wound on his left palm and acknowledged he’d been nicked by a sharp object as he tried to remove the man from the store, but wouldn’t say more about how it happened.

The clerk called police and went to the hospital but didn’t need stitches.

“I’m feeling sad,” he said about Eligon’s death. “The whole neighbourhood feels sad.”