Man says he ‘didn’t do anything wrong’
Dog walk in park last month leads to confrontation with police, then shots to chest, abdomen and wrist
A Toronto man who suffered life-threatening injuries after he was shot by a police officer last month said he was carrying a knife while out walking his dog — but posed no public safety risk, hadn’t threatened anyone and was fired on with little warning.
Speaking for the first time since he was shot near Black Creek Drive and Trethewey Drive in the early morning of Feb. 27, Devon Fowlin said he felt “pure shock and trauma” as a Toronto officer began to shoot at him, striking him in the abdomen, chest and arm.
“I feared for my life,” Fowlin, 31, told reporters Wednesday, still wearing a large bandage on his torso, his right arm in a purple cast.
“I didn’t do anything wrong at all.”
Fowlin, alongside lawyer Knia Singh and members of Fowlin’s immediate family, held a press conference to call for accountability and greater transparency in a “concerning” case that easily could have ended in tragedy, Singh said.
“Generally, in circumstances like this, people don’t live to tell their story,” Singh said, issuing a call for the swift release of body camera footage.
The shooting, which occurred just meters from a North York police station, is under investigation by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), the Ontario police watchdog that probes deaths and serious injuries involving police.
A spokesperson for the SIU has said Toronto police were called to a confrontation where a man who was walking his dog — now identified as Fowlin — allegedly threatened another man with a knife. Police arrived from across the street before two officers deployed their Tasers and a third fired a gun multiple times.
A Toronto police spokesperson said Wednesday that the force is not legally permitted to comment while the SIU probe is ongoing.
Initial reports from the Toronto police Twitter account said police were called to the area after “reports of a person with a knife in the park” who “may be threatening people.”
Fowlin — who lost his airport job in the pandemic, and who was experiencing homelessness and living out of his car at the time — said he was simply in the midst of his daily dog walk in the park. The park, he said, was empty at the time.
He did have a knife with him, one uses for cooking and for prayer, he said. That morning, Fowlin said he had raised his arm a few times while holding the knife and then noticed someone approaching. He said it was a police officer in an unmarked car who had stopped in a nearby parking lot and who started walking toward him.
As the man approached, Fowlin said he started putting his dog back into his car and then noticed two other police cruisers arriving. Officers got out, Fowlin said, and “pointed their guns at me right away.”
Singh said police asked Fowlin to show his hands and the knife, and he said he complied.
“They shouted one command and then immediately I felt a shot,” Fowlin said. “Right after, I just heard multiple shots going off.”
Both Fowlin and Singh said officers did not attempt to speak to Fowlin or try de-escalation tactics.
“We don’t understand why police were called,” Singh said. “And if they were called for a legitimate reason, were are very concerned with their actions, how they interacted with Mr. Fowlin.”
Singh called for the swift release of video footage, saying it was fortunate not only that Fowlin lived to tell his side of what happened but that officers were wearing body cameras at the time.
In the United States, Singh noted, body camera footage is routinely released “fairly soon” after a police shooting, but “we’ve never seen it happen like that in Canada.”
Monica Hudon, a spokesperson for the SIU, said Wednesday that to preserve the integrity of any investigation, “the SIU does not release information pertaining to the evidence collected while an investigation is ongoing.
“This would include body cam footage,” she said.
Fowlin, who was taken to hospital where he underwent surgery for serious injuries, said he is speaking out because he doesn’t want anyone else to experience what he went through.
Asked if he was calling for the officer who shot him to be charged, Fowlin said he is “hoping that justice is served, but I’m not hoping for their lives to be destroyed.”
The SIU has designated one subject officer and 10 witness officials, Hudon said.
Judith Spencer-Haynes, Fowlin’s mother, broke down in tears when she spoke about what her family has gone through since the shooting.
“I just want justice for my son,” she said. “It’s not fair for my son to go through all of this.”