Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has taken over the investigation into the first police shooting in Waterloo Region in nearly two years.
Just after midnight Thursday, Waterloo Regional Police say, a report came in about a possible impaired driver in the area of Highland Road and Belmont Avenue in Kitchener.
An officer caught up with the car in question on Ottawa Street South near Lilac Street, just west of Courtland Avenue, and pulled it over.
Exactly what happened after that remains unclear.
According to the SIU, a 39-year-old man in the car was shot once in the torso, and also hit with a conducted energy weapon.
Brenda Wilfort, who lives nearby, says she heard “a little bit of commotion” coming from up the street.
“All of a sudden I heard a pop, and I thought ‘That sounds like a gunshot,’” she said.
Another neighbour, who did not want his name to be used, said that he heard a similar noise. Going outside to investigate, he said, he saw a man lying on the ground behind the car and an officer speaking to him, with a gun drawn.
A few minutes later, the man said, the man was taken away in an ambulance.
By late morning, he was said to be in stable condition, although still in the intensive care unit at St. Mary’s General Hospital. He was under police guard, as he was in their custody and will be facing charges.
Details on exactly what those charges will be have not been made public. The man did not appear in court on Thursday.
The SIU is called in whenever somebody is killed or seriously injured during an interaction with police.
With reporting by Nicole Lampa
