If he had to do it over, with only the information he had at the time, Const. James Forcillo wouldn’t change anything he did the night he shot Sammy Yatim on a Dundas streetcar, he testified Thursday.

“Knowing what I know now,” he said, “I would have never taken the second volley.”

For the first time on Thursday, on the stand at his trial for second-degree murder and attempted murder, Forcillo, 32, testified about what he saw and thought in the moments before and after he shot Yatim eight times on July 27, 2013.

In response to a question from his lawyer Peter Brauti about why he believed Yatim, 18, to be an imminent threat to his life Forcillo summed up his testimony:

“I am a uniformed police officer. I’m pointing a firearm. I’ve given him numerous loud, clear verbal commands. Very simple instructions. He is shaking his head no. He is completely unafraid of me. His body language is very tense, very aggressive. His face is tense, his jaw is clenched, his eyes are wide. I watch him step back and take a deep breath. It looks to me like this is the calm before the storm. He’s making a decision. And then he puts the knife towards me. And he starts to come forward after I’ve already yelled ‘drop the knife.’ I yell ‘drop it.’ He says no, he is continuing to come forward. You know, Mr. Brauti, I’ve thought about this incident thousands of times. I live with it every day. The only conclusion that I can come to, and I’ve thought about this from every angle. The only conclusion is that he was coming off that streetcar.”

After the first volley of shots was fired, the jury has seen, Yatim was lying on his back on the floor of the streetcar.

Forcillo testified he saw the four-inch knife was a few inches away from Yatim’s right hand. But then, he said, Yatim scooped the knife back into his right hand, his left arm reached over, and he had the knife in a two-hand grip. He still appeared “angry, tense, determined.”

There is only one reason Yatim would pick up the knife - to continue the attack, Forcillo testified.

“He has to be the most determined person I've ever dealt with.”

Forcillo testified that he mistakenly perceived Yatim sitting up to a 45-degree angle - the videos of the streetcar interior show Yatim does not sit up. He suggested his mistake may have been due to the noisy, chaotic environment, that it was dark, or that Yatim was in a higher position than Forcillo.

Forcillo then fires six more shots, five of which strike Yatim’s lower body. Yatim continued to hold the knife, Forcillo said, and still had a wide-eyed “scary” look.

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I just, none of it makes any sense,” Forcillo says of what was going through his mind. “He starts to come forward despite being told not to. I fire at him, he goes down. Why is this not working? He gets the knife back in his hands. He looks like he’s trying to get up. I can’t believe the things that I’m seeing. I fire at him some more. And he’s still got the knife and he still doesn’t want to put it down. I just, I can’t believe what I’m looking at.”

Forcillo demonstrated Yatim’s movements between the two volleys of bullets in a video re-enactment played to the jury. The jury was also played a blurry video from the streetcar interior to show what Forcillo says is Yatim picking up the knife.

Forcillo testified that he wished he was wearing a body camera so that his perspective could have been captured on video.

Throughout his testimony he maintained that he followed his police training correctly.

The Crown has called evidence to show Forcillo had alternatives to using lethal force that he did not use, including de-escalation. The Crown has also argued Yatim did not pose a threat to Forcillo by stepping forward to an area where he’d been standing moments before.

Here is what Forcillo testified happened from the moment he arrived at the stopped Dundas streetcar near Bellwoods Ave:

Forcillo arrived at the scene with his partner Const. Iris Fleckeisen and was told by a man that Yatim was still on the streetcar, he said.

“That’s when I get my first glimpse of Mr. Yatim. He’s showing me the knife, so at that point I draw my firearm,” he said, adding that this is exactly what his training says to do.

Yatim looked “very fit, very agile,” Forcillo said. “In my mind he looked capable of attacking me.”

Yatim appeared to be “tracking me with the knife,” Forcillo said. “He wants me to know he’s got this thing.”

Forcillo positioned himself about 10 feet away from Yatim. It felt very close to Yatim - close enough to touch, he testified.

He chose his position for four reasons: to place himself between the public and the threat, to contain Yatim on the streetcar, to be able to communicate with Yatim and to see what he was doing.

It was not the safest position, he agreed.

He testified that he was concerned about someone else being on the streetcar with Yatim, rejecting the suggestion of the Crown expert that he close the streetcar doors.

Forcillo said he gave “loud, clear” commands to “drop the knife,” the most effective way to communicate to get compliance as per his training, though he admitted he should not have sworn.

If he could go back and change something in his approach, he said, he would not have his colleague also yelling at Yatim to drop the knife — “I can see that being confusing,” he said.

When asked if Yatim looked like he would surrender, Forcillo said: “Absolutely not. Mr. Yatim was in a fight till the end.”

His face was flushed, his eyes were wide, his jaw was clenched, Forcillo said. He looked like “that guy in a bar looking for a fist fight.”

The most unusual thing, he testified, was that Yatim looked “completely, completely unafraid of me.”

Yatim was not interested in complying and could attack at any second, Forcillo said. “He seemed fully capable of launching an attack.”

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But Yatim also “absolutely understood” what was happening and was choosing not to comply, Forcillo said.

“He is making decisions. Bad decisions. But he is making them.”

So he said he changed tactics. Adopting a “more moderate tone” he told Yatim: if you take one step in this direction, I’m going to shoot you.”

He said Yatim went still and took a deep breath - the “calm before the storm.”

“To me it looks like he is making a decision,” Forcillo said. He said he saw Yatim’s face change - his eyes widened and his jaw clenched. Then, Forcillo said, Yatim flicked the knife at him.

“I see this. Now it becomes clear to me. He’s coming.”

“It looks to me like he’s bracing himself,” Forcillo said.

What is going through your mind, Brauti asked.

“Terror,” Forcillo said.

“Did you want to shoot Mr. Yatim when he was coming forward?” Brauti said.

“Of course not, no,” Forcillo said. He said he yelled at Yatim to “drop it” in a last ditch attempt. He said Yatim replied: “no.”

If Yatim had dropped the knife, Forcillo said, he would not have been shot.

Forcillo dismissed the alternative suggestions made by Crown use-of-force expert Robert Warshaw, such as using pepper spray or throwing a police baton at Yatim, as “absurd” and a “recipe for disaster.”

If you pull a gun on someone and tell them to do something very simple like drop a knife and they are refusing, Forcillo said, “what is to lead me to believe that if I say, ‘hey would you like a glass of water,’ things are magically going to be okay?”

Forcillo has pleaded not guilty to the charges of second-degree murder and attempted murder.

In a video, played to the jury Thursday morning, Forcillo has his gun pointed at two men lying on the ground in Kensington Market.

He had told them to drop their knives, to lie down on the ground and to spread their arms with “loud, authoritative commands,” he testified. When another officer arrived, the men were handcuffed.

Why were no shots fired in the Kensington Market “drug rip-off”, Forcillo’s lawyer Peter Brauti asked.

“They did exactly what they were told to do and did not make any threatening movements,” Forcillo said.

The trial continues Friday with cross-examination.