Ontario’s police watchdog is investigating after a man was shot and injured by police after he allegedly injured multiple people with a weapon in Ottawa’s east end Friday night.
The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) says officers with the Ottawa Police Service responded to a call about a man with a weapon who was assaulting people and damaging vehicles in the area of St. Joseph Boulevard and Place d’Orléans Drive at approximately 11:15 p.m.
“Police confronted the man. An officer shot the man multiple times,” the SIU said in a media release on Saturday.
“Two conducted energy weapons were deployed.”
The SIU says the man was arrested and taken to hospital.
Four people were injured and taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The province’s watchdog did not specify the type of weapon the suspect used to assault them.
As of Saturday morning, SIU investigators remain at the scene, which spans across three parking lots and a secondary road on Place d’Orléans Boulevard.
Ontario’s police watchdog is investigating after a man was shot and injured by police after he allegedly injured multiple people with a weapon in Ottawa’s east end Friday night. (Dylan Dyson/ CTV News Ottawa)
Ontario’s police watchdog is investigating after a man was shot and injured by police after he allegedly injured multiple people with a weapon in Ottawa’s east end Friday night. (Dylan Dyson/ CTV News Ottawa)
The SIU is investigating the officer discharging a firearm at the man, according to an SIU spokesperson. Five investigators and two forensic investigators have been assigned to the case.
Anyone with information about the incident, including dashcam footage is asked to call the SIU investigator at 1-800-787-8529.
The Ottawa Police Service is conducting a parallel investigation into the alleged assaults of the four people in the area.
‘You see this on TV’: Witness
CTV News Ottawa’s reporter Dylan Dyson spoke with a witness who lives just behind the Wendy’s on Place d’Orléans Saturday.
The witness, Jack Parent, says that what he saw is not something people in Orléans would see.
“You see this on TV,” Parent said.
“(at the time) I heard a big bang, so I thought somebody banged on our window. So, we looked outside and we saw (about) eight cop cars outside of Wendy’s, just pointing something, I thought it was their guns.
“I went out and we saw the guy on the ground, so that’s all the way. I didn’t see before that. Cops were yelling at the van across the street at the mall: ‘Go check it out.'”