The Special Investigations Unit has been called in — indicating a possible police role in the incident — after a man in his 20s was shot Friday night in Queen subway station and rushed to hospital in life-threatening condition.

Paramedics said they responded to the incident just before 8 p.m. and he was transported to a local trauma centre. Initial reports suggested that the man was standing on one of the platforms when he was shot, but investigators are still trying to determine how the incident unfolded.

The man was listed in stable condition on Saturday morning.

Jessica Wong boarded the subway train at Queen station when someone pressed the emergency passenger assistance alarm.

A couple of police officers walked by as if searching for something, Wong said, and she heard them yell, “Put your hands where I can see them,” multiple times.

“I didn't hear everything that the guy yelled back but I clearly heard him say ‘.... I don't have anything to live for anyways,’” Wong wrote in an email.

She said she saw police pointing guns at a man at the back of the train wearing a black jacket, and another witness told her the man had a gun pointed towards his own head.

About six to eight more police officers arrived on the scene and directed Wong and others to exit the station, she said.

“All of a sudden we all heard about 10-15 gun shots,” she said. “That is when everyone started running up the (staircase) and escalators. People who were coming down were going back up, people were even running up (and) down escalators in which some got hurt from falling or (were) traumatized from the shots that they heard.”

Maria Silva saw a group of people running into the Eaton Centre from the subway station and asked one woman what had happened. The woman she spoke to said she saw the shooting while standing on the platform at Queen station.

Silva described a man “holding the train hostage.” Officers were yelling at him, “Put the gun down, put the gun down,” she said.

When she heard several shots ring out, the woman began to run, said Silva.

“She was in shock, so I was trying to console her,” she said. “It happened so fast. She just ran.”

Queen station was still shut Saturday morning for the police investigation, with subway service on the Yonge line between Bloor and Union stations suspended. Shuttle buses are operating between stations. Service is expected to be back to normal by about 12:30 p.m., the TTC said.

Queen St. between Bay St. and Yonge St. was blocked off by police cars until 10 Friday night, with at least a dozen cruisers parked in front of the Eaton Centre. Yellow police tape cordoned off the entrance to the subway station, while passersby gathered in confusion, wondering what happened.

Officers were seen corralling people into unmarked police vans at around 9:15 p.m., possibly to conduct interviews with witnesses.

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Yasar Nomey, 20, was inside the Eaton Centre on an escalator near the mall’s underground access to the station, when he heard “14 or 15 shots” ring out and saw security guards rushing down toward Queen station.

“I was scared; I go to school around here, so it was pretty scary,” he said.

The SIU is called whenever police are involved in incidents that lead to serious injury or death or when officers are accused of sexual assault.

The unit was last called to investigate Toronto police over an incident Nov. 30, when cops shot a 34-year-old man several times at an apartment building near Gerrard St. E. and Jarvis St.