Witnesses who were on the streetcar before Sammy Yatim was shot and killed by police describe a normal night shattered by a piercing scream. An otherwise quiet streetcar ride was thrown into chaos when he stood up, a knife in one hand and his penis in the other, and began advancing on the crowd.

Aaron Li-Hill, a 27-year-old artist, was on his way back to Roncesvalles with his girlfriend. Jessica Doyle, a 28-year-old veterinarian, was headed home as well. Melody Garcia, 18, was going to visit her friend, and had met Yatim previously.

Their recollections of his behaviour raise questions. Why didn’t Yatim stab people when he had the opportunity? What caused him to expose himself? Why did he stay on the streetcar, and even sit down, after all the passengers fled?

They and more than a dozen others briefly became a community, bonded at first by terror and later by bewilderment. Below is their account of the minutes leading up to the police shooting of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim in the words of three witnesses.

Melody Garcia: I got on the streetcar at River St. It’s near Regent Park. I was supposed to go to my friend’s house.

Jessica Doyle: I was at the AGO and I decided to take the streetcar home so I got on to the Dundas West streetcar at McCaul Street at about quarter to midnight Friday night. When I was on it was pretty busy but I was able to get a seat in the middle of the car, in the individual seats.

Garcia: I think he got on at either Kensington Market or the street before that. I recognized him from mutual friends but I did not fully know him. He was a really good kid. I didn’t say hi to (Sammy) because I don’t really know him at all personally. I recognized his face, that’s all.

Aaron Li-Hill: I got on the streetcar at about 11:50 p.m., I would say. The stop was one street west of Augusta. Me and my girlfriend got on the streetcar. I brought my bike with me, which is sort of a rare thing.

We walked from the front of the streetcar to the back, where there’s that section of open space near the back exits, where there’s a big enough space to hold the bike. I propped it up there and me and my girlfriend were just chatting.

Garcia: I could hear the girls laughing from behind me. I was on the phone with my friend. From how I saw him, when he got on, he was laughing, he was smiling, he seemed really OK.

Li-Hill: I remember seeing someone who now I know was Sammy and two young girls across from him. There were maybe 15 people on the streetcar. They were sitting across from each other — Sammy was on the same side as the streetcar driver and the girls were sitting on the seats across from him. They were the furthest back. I really didn’t pay them much attention in the very beginning, but my initial impression was that they were (interacting) at least to a certain degree.

Doyle: Just before we were about to stop I heard screams coming from the back of the streetcar. Some girls were screaming like they were terrified.

Garcia: I heard a scream. A very horrible scream where someone needed help and she was asking for help. I saw his genitals out in one hand and then I saw, I think, a knife in the other hand. That’s when I panicked.

Li-Hill: I turned back and I see one of the girls, the one closest to Sammy, lean over towards her other friend and (they) kind of jump out of their seats and run. Right then I looked over and saw a flash of light, and it was light reflecting off the metal of the blade. He was leaning forward. I can’t tell if it was to intimidate them more, to potentially attack them or just him standing up, but he then stood up.

Garcia: I’m looking at what he’s doing and I get up and run with everyone else, running ahead.

Doyle: I stood up to look at what was going on and all of a sudden a bunch of people started running towards the front of the streetcar. I could see a guy, behind everyone, following them walking slowly and steadily.

My first thought was that he had a gun, given the anxiety that everyone was showing. I thought I was going to get shot.

Li-Hill: The girls ran past me. I looked behind me for a split second and saw everybody in the streetcar pushed up against the front entrance. The streetcar was still in motion at this point. Sammy was walking towards me and I quickly pulled my bike around from where it was and positioned it so that the back tire was on the ground and the front tire was in the air, and the tires were facing Sammy and I used it as a barrier between him and I.

Yatim says “Nobody get off the f--king streetcar,” according to Li-Hill, and begins slowly advancing toward the front of the streetcar.

Garcia: We were all screaming to get out and he was coming toward us with the knife and this really crazy look in his eyes. I can’t stop remembering that.

Doyle: I attempted to try and run off the streetcar but he was moving fast enough that I couldn’t get in front of him so I actually sat back down in my seat and huddled into my seat hoping that he would pass me by.

Li-Hill: I think, in a very subconscious way, I was trying to protect myself and use it as a barrier for everybody else. I remember thinking in my head like, I’m the only guy with a bike, I’m the only guy with a defence on the streetcar right now.

I was staring at his eyes. I can’t perfectly say if he was staring at me back because I was looking at his eyes and I was looking at his knife to make sure that he wasn’t about to attack me.

At this point Li-Hill is backing up toward the front of the streetcar, the bike between himself and Yatim.

Doyle: As he walked by me I noticed he didn’t have a gun, he had a knife in his right hand. The blade was about four inches long and it was about an inch wide. And he actually had his penis out in his left hand. He walked right by me and didn’t pay me any attention, thankfully.

Li-Hill: I had the bike in the air ready to just throw it on him in case he made any kind of movements toward me. The way he was holding the knife I found a little bit odd too. He just had his arm completely straight out in front of him with the elbow locked, and the knife was sticking directly up. It wasn’t actually pointing towards me. At no point did he actually thrust the knife towards me, either.

Doyle: I had crouched down and covered myself with my purse.

Li-Hill: I was backing up and I remember saying, “Please just let us off the streetcar. Please just let us off the streetcar.” Trying to be stern, trying to be direct but not trying to antagonize him any more.

Doyle: I ran off the back of the streetcar. As I ran off the back of the streetcar I could hear him yelling. I honestly don’t remember what he was yelling but I could hear him yelling and then I saw people running off the (front of the) streetcar.

Garcia: We all get off and people are (stumbling) face-first on the ground.

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Li-Hill: I sort of slowed down near the exit to make sure that everyone’s off and just waiting for this moment that I thought was going to come, of him trying to attack me.

I somehow managed to hold the bike up and still step off the stairs. I remember thinking in my head that that was my most vulnerable moment. If I stumble or if I fall or if I drop the bike, maybe this is his moment to actually stab me. As soon as I made it off the streetcar I had my bike on the road and I felt perfectly safe at that moment.

Garcia: I remember running so fast and then after I had to run back because I noticed that I had no shoes on, so I had to go back and get my shoes.

Doyle: I was about two lampposts back. I turned around. I was watching the streetcar but I called 911. I was on the phone with 911. I watched Sammy, he stayed on the streetcar on his own.

Li-Hill: I looked over and realized that the streetcar driver was still (in his seat). I looked at him and said, “Are you OK? Do you want me to call the police? What should we do?”

He kind of gave me this look of just helplessness. The TTC driver just looked at me like, “I don’t know! What am I supposed to do?” that’s what I read from his face.

I thought this was so strange, because Sammy just glanced over, saw the streetcar driver and looked back completely unfazed and started screaming out at the rest of the crowd and the passengers from the streetcar, screaming obscenities. I remember hearing, “You’re a f--king p---y. you bitches, you f--king bitches.”

Li-Hill: Just before I got off the streetcar I heard him say, “Everybody get off the f--king streetcar.” That, to me, was this odd moment where he was switching everything around. He may be in a moment of a loss of control. I was like “We should get out of here, let’s go. We escaped with our lives let’s get out of here.” So we walked up the street.

Garcia: I ran into the girls (from the back of the streetcar) and they told me what happened from their side of the story.

(One girl) grabbed her phone, and she was crying hysterically. She told the police to come because there was an incident on the streetcar, she said, “A man tried to kill me.”

I was talking to the younger girl, and she said he showed her his penis. I was really stunned because she was just a kid. I would have to say at the most 15.

Doyle: I said (to 911) there’s a guy on the streetcar going westbound with a knife, that just pulled out a knife and exposed himself. They asked me where we were, if anyone was hurt, and they were just asking me details about what was going on.

Sammy kind of walked back and forth a few times and then ended up sitting down and waiting, essentially. He sat down in one of the seats close to the front of the streetcar when everyone was off. I’m not entirely sure why, but he stayed on. That’s just about the time the police showed up. As soon as the police arrived they were like, “Thank you” and hung up (the call). I was on the phone with them for maybe a minute or so.

Li-Hill: Not even four houses down, 20 seconds (after leaving the streetcar), I just hear a huge mass of sirens.

Doyle: All the doors to the streetcar were open and the police huddled around the front door. I heard them yell multiple times for him to drop his knife. I could see him standing there, but I couldn’t see him entirely from the angle I was at so I don’t know exactly what he was doing.

Li-Hill: We cut through an alleyway and are still flustered. I’m trying to calm my girlfriend down and trying to stay calm myself. It feels like not even 20 seconds later and I hear nine shots ring out — or the first three or four, then a break, then more. I remember seeing a man on his porch look over at me and say, “What the hell’s going on?” and I scream “Somebody’s getting shot right now!”

Doyle: All I could hear was the police shouting at him to drop the knife, and then very quickly the shooting started and I saw him fall.

Li-Hill: I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, this situation must have really escalated fast.” My whole idea in my head was that the streetcar driver was still on there, that Sammy had attacked him, this was the police officer’s only option. But then I thought to myself, he seemed very crazed, if police tell him to drop a weapon and he doesn’t drop a weapon I know that they would probably shoot him.

My girlfriend was asking me, “What happened? What’s going on? Why do you think there’s shots being fired right now?” That’s when I told her the sad truth is he might be getting shot right now, because he’s just holding the knife.

Within one minute of police arriving, 18-year-old Sammy Yatim was shot dead. He was still on the streetcar. In the days that followed the people of Toronto took to the streets to demand answers. The Special Investigations Unit opened an investigation into the killing of Sammy Yatim. Officer James Forcillo was suspended with pay after be became the subject of the SIU probe.