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A heavy police presence converged on the 700-block of Goyeau Street in downtown Windsor on Friday morning after an officer responding to a 911 call shot and killed a man who was allegedly threatening people with a weapon.
Windsor resident Terry Robinson said he came upon the dramatic scene moments after the shooting.
“I was driving up Elliot Street beside the fire station when I saw the police,” Robinson told the Windsor Star. “I looked and saw a man down on the ground getting chest compressions and that’s when the ambulance pulled up and put the man on the stretcher.”
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Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) confirmed Friday afternoon that a 57-year-old man was shot and killed after police responded to an emergency call.
The SIU, an arm’s-length agency that probes reports of sexual assault, death or serious injury involving police, has taken over the investigation.
Windsor police Const. Bianca Jackson told reporters that police received a call about a person with a weapon in the 700 block of Goyeau around 10:30 a.m. Friday.
“When officers arrived they encountered a male with a weapon, and subsequently this male was shot,” said Jackson.
Despite varying bystander accounts, police did not confirm how many shots the officer fired.
Neither the SIU nor Windsor police have said what kind of weapon the man had. But Jackson said the officer who fired the shots suffered a minor cut during the confrontation.
“At this point I can’t confirm what kind of weapon it was,” said Jackson. “But it was a weapon that was clearly used to threaten peoples’ lives.”
The SIU stated the shooting occurred at 790 Goyeau, which is the address of the downtown Beer Store. Investigators did not say if the shooting occurred inside or outside of the business.
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But officers spent a lot of time Friday focused on the sidewalk area outside The Beer Store entrance. There were also some discarded paramedic gloves lying on the cement outside the store.
At one point, several officers spread out a large plastic sheet over the sidewalk.
Elliot and Goyeau streets were cordoned off with yellow police tape. An ambulance, multiple police vehicles and the Windsor Police mobile command centre were also on the scene.
Officers barricaded the streets adjacent to The Beer Store, fire department headquarters and a grocery store.
Police said Goyeau will be closed from Tuscarora Street to Erie Street East, and Elliot will be closed from Windsor Avenue to Dufferin Place, for an unknown amount of time.
“Investigations like these do take a lot of time, a lot of resources,” said Jackson. “We will be out here for an unknown amount of time at this point. But we will be putting barricades up to help officers go to other calls around the city.”
Speaking to the Star on Friday afternoon, an employee at the Downtown Mission of Windsor said that an altercation occurred earlier in the morning across the street from the building but declined to provide details on what happened.
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Jackson said the suspect was seen in a couple of different places before the shooting occurred, but didn’t confirm the locations.
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“This is all part of the investigation,” she said. “So as it unrolls, we’ll be able to confirm these details.”
Friday’s incident occurred not far away from where Windsor police fatally shot a 70-year-old man wielding a machete at the intersection of Ouellette Avenue and Wyandotte Street two years ago.
After investigating, the SIU concluded police had used “reasonable defensive force” in that Aug. 15, 2022, incident involving the local senior.
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