Girlfriend of teen shot by police on west Mountain said he had ‘the biggest heart’
The girlfriend of a 19-year-old Hamilton man whom police shot and killed says the last time she saw him was for Easter dinner at his Mountain home.
That was Saturday night. On Tuesday morning, Melanie Schronk says she was in class at her Toronto high school when she started receiving troubling texts from her boyfriend, Quinn MacDougall.
“He was getting threatening messages from an anonymous source. And he was super paranoid. He hadn’t been sleeping.”
Schronk, 15, says MacDougall didn’t tell her the exact nature of the threats, but suggested his family would be in danger if he didn’t leave their Caledon Avenue townhouse unit.
“He was supposed to come to my house that night,” said Schronk, who lives in Burlington. Around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, she recalled, MacDougall told her he’d called police and was waiting for them. “He said, ‘I just don’t feel safe.’”
The next message she received was from her boyfriend’s sister, telling her police had shot him.
“I don’t want to believe that it’s real, but I know that I’m never going to get a message back from him ever again.”
Two police officers shot MacDougall not far from his home around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. He was pronounced dead at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Residents of the townhouse complex near Upper James Street and Mohawk Road West are trying to understand how police ended up shooting the teen, described as having a friendly and uplifting personality.
The Special Investigations Unit, a provincial police watchdog,
has released little information about the incident, but said police fielded two calls about an armed man on Caledon Avenue.
Police have said in a brief statement that officers responded to a “threat in progress involving a weapon” at the townhouse complex. On scene, officers “interacted with an adult male.”
Police have declined to comment more, citing the ongoing SIU investigation. The SIU, meanwhile, has declined to say whether a weapon had been recovered at the scene or what kind may have been involved.
On Thursday, Schronk said she met MacDougall online about 11 months ago. At first, she wasn’t sure if MacDougall, who talked for hours about politics and the news, would be a good match for her. Those doubts faded as she got to know him.
“He was always so happy about everything,” the Grade 10 student said. “I think he wanted everyone to feel better.”
His distraught and grieving family has declined to comment in the aftermath of his death.
Schronk said MacDougall went to Westmount Secondary but dropped out thinking school wasn’t for him. He had aspired, however, to eventually attend college to become a security guard or firearms instructor.
MacDougall had a seasonal job at the Aldershot Arena where cleaned up and taught children how to skate, Schronk said. It was a job he enjoyed despite long hours.
They saw each other at least every weekend. “We would go to concerts; we would go out for dinner; we would just spend time in his house just watching movies in his living room.”
Schronk said she’d never known her boyfriend to be in such a troubled state.
“I would just want people to know that he wasn’t a dangerous man in any way,” she added. “No matter (what) the media will say about him, he had the biggest heart. He wasn’t the kind of guy that you could stay angry at.”
A woman who said she witnessed a part of the confrontation said she saw MacDougall raise a knife at a police officer on a patch of grass near her unit. She and her husband went back inside and heard “pop, pop, pop.”
The woman, who didn’t want to be identified fearing repercussions from neighbours, said she also saw a Taser on the ground. “They were only defending themselves.”
A family friend and neighbour insists MacDougall was not the aggressor. “They pursued him first and they scared him,” Shannon Windsor said. “They made it worse. They are not equipped to handle these situations.”
The two officers shot MacDougall not far from her unit as her children and their cousins played road hockey outside her brother’s home down the street, Windsor said.
The mother of three young children said MacDougall was distressed and scared when he called police, or 911, twice. The second time was from her brother’s place because his phone wasn’t working, Windsor said.
“He called 911 himself and, unfortunately, they didn’t do what they’re supposed to. They didn’t serve and protect.”
If MacDougall posed such a threat, why didn’t police clear the street of children first, Windsor asked. “I couldn’t believe that they would expose my children to that.”
Windsor described the MacDougall household as kind and generous, like Quinn. “Every time you saw him, he was always happy. He put a smile on your face.”
She has set up an online campaign to raise funds for his unexpected funeral and burial. The GoFundMe effort aims to raise $10,000.
MacDougall’s death was the sixth fatal police shooting in Hamilton in the last decade.
Under the Police Services Act, police are trained to not draw, point or discharge a firearm unless the officer believes “on reasonable grounds” it’s necessary to prevent “loss of life or serious bodily harm.”
Police’s use of lethal force has come under scrutiny in recent years, especially following the 2013 police shooting of Steve Mesic in his Hamilton backyard, which sparked an inquest.
Hamilton police agreed to make changes to mental health training for its officers. The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services plans to roll out a new response framework this summer that will feature new training standards.
Schronk, on her way to the MacDougall residence Thursday evening for funeral arrangements, said she wants “some sort of justice for him and his family.”