Driver fatally shot during Toronto police investigation in Mississauga: SIU

Ontario’s police watchdog is investigating a fatal shooting involving Toronto police officers in Mississauga.

The Special Investigations Unit said the shooting unfolded overnight on Thursday in relation to a “person with a gun” investigation. The shooting involved one officer and the driver of a vehicle.

Toronto police officers located a Mercedes shortly before 12:30 a.m on Delfi Road in Mississauga, in the area of The Collegeway and Winston Churchill Boulevard.

Five unmarked Toronto police vehicles were involved in the operation, with three of them colliding with the Mercedes, Monica Hudon, spokesperson for the SIU, said.

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The vehicle had four occupants inside.

SIU initially said that the investigation was in regard to a stolen vehicle, but Toronto police later clarified the investigation was related to a report of a person with a gun and that the Mercedes had not been reported stolen.

Following the collision, an officer who was standing on the roadway shot at the Mercedes, striking the 19-year-old driver, Hudon said. He died at the scene.

The three other occupants were taken into custody and were not physically injured. One Toronto police officer was taken to hospital with minor injuries following one of the collisions.

Investigators recovered two firearms from inside the Mercedes, but Hudon said there is no indication there was an exchange of gunfire.

Hudon said it is also “too early to know what led up to the shooting or what happened after.”

The SIU has assigned four investigators, three forensic investigators and a collision reconstructionist to the case.

Hudon said the driver’s family is in the process of being notified.

The SIU is asking anyone with information or video of the incident to contact investigators.

The agency invokes its mandate whenever police actions may have resulted in death, serious injury, the discharge of a firearm at a person or allegations of sexual assault.