The tragic day Quinn MacDougall was killed
Police gunned down teen steps from home
Nineteen-year-old Quinn MacDougall was about to rent his own place for the first time, entering a new chapter of adulthood, when police shot him dead on the street at his Hamilton Mountain townhouse complex.
It is a devastating and confounding sudden turn of events his family is struggling to come to terms with while making funeral arrangements and hoping the Special Investigations Unit comes up with answers.
“We just get waves of sadness, anger or confusion,” L. Trinh, MacDougall’s uncle, said as he tried to find words to sum up the violent loss of his nephew on Tuesday afternoon outside his Caledon Avenue townhouse complex.
Trinh, who requested only his first initial be used, said the youngest of his sister’s three children was a normal, happy kid with no history of mental illness or aggression.
“Quinn always had a smile. He had a big heart. He was a good person,” said Trinh, a real estate agent in Waterloo Region.
The family is tormented with questions about how two police officers ended up shooting the teenager after he called police for help several times that day believing his life was in danger.
Trinh said his nephew placed his first call to police between 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. to report a threat made against him over social media or by text.
“He took it seriously. And we don’t know if it was a prank, and we don’t know if it was serious,” Trinh said Friday.
He said MacDougall called again around noon but there was no response.
Then MacDougall went to a neighbour’s home between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. to borrow a phone because his cellphone’s batteries must have run out, the uncle said.
“He feared for his life ... the anxiety just continued to increase in him ... He probably felt helpless.”
Chris Windsor said he met MacDougall on his steps, where the teen told him he believed someone was trying to kill him. Windsor, whose kids were playing hockey with cousins outside, gave MacDougall his phone.
Windsor said he heard MacDougall briefly explain to the emergency call-taker his life was in danger.
The teen also told his neighbour he believed the person after him was in an area down the street where kids were playing. Windsor said he didn’t see any children there.
“It seemed like he had an episode. He was paranoid ... Like someone was looking to harm him.”
Police eventually arrived. Then MacDougall spotted a man parked in an SUV on the road and jumped behind the grill of a police cruiser, ducking up and down, and yelling words to the effect of “‘That’s him trying to kill me. He’s the one with the gun.’”
More police were on scene at this point, Windsor said. MacDougall walked with an officer back to his survey, out of his line of sight.
About 30 seconds later, MacDougall reappeared and noticed officers dealing with the man in the SUV. MacDougall yelled, “‘You want to see me dead,’” giving Windsor the impression he thought police were arresting the man he believed was trying to kill him.
He ran, making a “hammering” motion with one hand, with what Windsor believes was a cellphone — but not a knife as some witnesses have told The Spectator.
Police deployed Tasers several times, the first one, at least, jolting MacDougall’s body into the air, Windsor said. But he kept running, all told about 50 feet, until police converged on him and opened fire.
“Sounded to me like I heard five shots ... As the shots hit, his body just kind of went dead.”
It all happened quickly, Windsor said, but he believes police didn’t have to shoot the teen.
“There was lots of time to deactivate that situation.”
The SIU, 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 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.
The SIU has said there are two “subject” officers and four “witness” officers.
Trinh, 42, spoke to his nephew’s stepfather, who watched the deadly encounter play out from a different vantage point than Windsor’s.
The uncle said police arrived to meet MacDougall at his townhouse unit. Things seemed in check, and his mother’s common-law husband took their dog for a short walk.
Somehow, things spiralled out of control because next, MacDougall — wearing a T-shirt, pyjama bottoms and flip-flops and holding a cellphone — was running from police on the street.
Trinh says family who were there say his nephew didn’t have a knife. “He had a cellphone.”
They can’t understand how MacDougall’s calls for help ended up with him on the ground with fatal gunshot wounds. “I’m not sure how it escalated to that,” Trinh said.
Melanie Schronk, who had dated MacDougall for about 11 months, said she started receiving texts from him that morning about anonymous threats.
“And he was super paranoid. He hadn’t been sleeping,” the 15-year-old Burlington resident said Thursday.
The SIU told reporters paramedics took MacDougall to St. Josephs. Hamilton EMS clarified Friday that they had taken him to Hamilton General.
Tuesday’s fatal police shooting was the sixth in Hamilton in the past decade.
It has sparked sadness and outrage in the tight-knit townhouse complex.
Family friend Shannon Windsor, Chris’s sister, has started an online campaign to raise funds for the unexpected funeral.
By around 4:30 p.m. Friday, the GoFundMe effort called “fundraiser for Quinn” had reached $4,125 of its $10,000 goal.
Her young children were playing hockey with their cousins when police shot MacDougall.
“I was devastated. I couldn’t believe that they would expose my children to that.”
Though grieving, MacDougall’s parents, stepfather and two sisters thank the community for all support they’ve received following MacDougall’s death, Trinh said.
He said he doesn’t want his nephew remembered as a guy who was running around crazed with a knife.
He says he was close to him and tried to instil values from his native Vietnam, from where his family arrived as refugees in the 1980s.
“I just want everyone to remember that Quinn MacDougall was a good person, and what happened was tragic and ... it’s just so confusing for us.”
MacDougall was extremely intelligent, talking about news and politics at his young age, Trinh said.
His nephew liked fishing and played sports.
He even aspired to be a police officer.
“We’re not anti-cop. We’re like pro-cop people.”
MacDougall leaves behind many relatives.
A private funeral is planned for Sunday with a second for the public tentatively planned for sometime next week, Trinh said.
“He feared for his life ... the anxiety just continued to increase in him ... He probably felt helpless.” L. TRINH, MACDOUGALL’S UNCLE