Witness describes shooting details as man confronted police near van

Suspect was wounded, now in stable condition, in incident outside Etobicoke home

It was all over within minutes.

Shortly after 7 a.m., Sergio Chevpilo phoned 911 to report a stranger had allegedly broken into his van.

By 7:40 a.m. that man had been shot by police on the quiet Etobicoke street and rushed to hospital, where he remains in stable condition with serious injuries. The province’s Special Investigations Unit is probing the incident.

Chevpilo awoke to the sound of his garbage cans being knocked around and someone screaming. He went outside to investigate and from the backyard, saw the rear windows of his white cargo van had been smashed in.

A person appeared to be crouched inside.

“Right away, I called the police,” he said Sunday from outside his home on Epping St., near The Westway and Islington Ave.

Chevpilo said on Saturday morning, he headed back inside and watched the drama unfold from his front window.

The man, who was later described as 28, white, with short brown hair and wearing no shoes, crawled out of the van as police cruisers arrived. He was carrying a rubber mallet, Chevpilo said. “When he got out, I saw the police at that exact same moment,” Chev

pilo said. “The next moment I saw the police officer start backing (away) from him. And I saw the guy with the hammer. He was walking to them — like to attack the police officer.” “Right after that was bang, bang.”

After police shouted for the man to drop his weapon, at least two shots were fired, he said. Chevpilo, originally from Ukraine, has lived in Etobicoke for the past five years. He is grateful for the police intervention. His children, 2 and 4, were inside the home. “If not for police officers — why did he need the hammer? Maybe to get inside the house. Or smash other houses. . . . I don’t know what could have happened.” Chevpilo believes the rubber mallet was taken from his van, which he uses for his construction job. He confirmed reports the man was not wearing shoes but did not know his mental state. Other neighbours said the man had filthy feet, as if he had not been wearing shoes for some time, or “really dirty socks. No shoes or appropriate footwear,” said Alanna Carnevale, who lives across the street. Carnevale watched from her window as police handcuffed the victim and then attended his wounds, which she described as being in the lower abdomen. SIU spokeswoman Monica Hudon could not be reached for comment. On Saturday she told the Star she could not discuss the man’s mental state because the investigation was ongoing. His name has not been released. Some have drawn comparisons to the shooting death of teenager Sammy Yatim, who was killed by police on a Toronto streetcar this summer. An inquest into the police shooting deaths of three other GTA residents believed to be in mental health crises at the time, wielding weapons like small knives and scissors, begins Oct. 15. Karyn Greenwood-Graham, whose son Trevor was shot and killed by police in Kitchener in the midst of a manic episode in 2007, said she was “dismayed but not surprised” by Saturday’s incident. She is the founder of advocacy group Grief2Action and wants police better equipped to deal with mental health crises. “The disconnect between the justice system and health system is huge. It’s cavernous,” she said. “We need police, but we don’t need police who are escalating a situation when they approach someone.”