

Joshua Freeman, CP24.com





A man is dead after being shot by police in Scarborough Friday afternoon, the province’s Special Investigations Unit has confirmed.

The SIU says it happened around 12:45 p.m. after police received a call about a suspicious man at an address at the intersection of Eglinton Avenue and Kennedy Road.

Toronto police told CP24 they received a call about a man armed with a machete.

Police arrived and confronted the man, at which point he was shot, the SIU says.

Witnesses near the scene who saw the shooting told CP24 they saw the man shot several times.

“I was crossing the road and all of a sudden the police, they show up in the intersection, they blocked it off and they surround him and he has a machete in his hand,” a witness, who identified himself as Danny, told CP24.

“They were telling him ‘don’t move’ and he took a step forward and there were gunshots. At the same time all three of the officers shot him and he fell to the ground. It was scary to see something like that – I was shaking.”

The man was rushed to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre without vital signs and was pronounced dead a short time later.

“We’re still trying to determine exactly what happened,” said Const. Tony Vella of Toronto police.

Within an hour of the incident, the province’s Special investigations Unit said they had invoked their mandate.

The SIU is an arm’s length agency called in whenever police are involved in an incident that results in a death or serious injury.

The agency said they have assigned six investigators and three forensic investigators to look into the shooting.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the lead investigator at 416-622-1886 or 1-800-787-8529 ext. 1886.

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