Watch:
Hundreds of people gathered in Toronto to protest the shooting death of Sammy
Yatim.
TORONTO – A memorial
is growing at the site of the recent fatal shooting of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim
aboard a TTC streetcar.
And hundreds of
Torontonians participated in a protest march Monday evening to bring further
awareness to the police shooting that has raised the ire of many across
Toronto.
Yatim’s mother and
sister were among the crowd of protesters that stretched more than a block as
marchers left a downtown square for the west-end intersection where the
teenager died on Saturday morning.
Barely able to speak,
Sammy’s mother repeated her son’s name over and over again, her hand reaching
for a photo of him.
The shooting has
sparked a flood of anger at Toronto police, who have suspended an officer
involved in the shooting.
Watch: Outrage grows over Toronto streetcar shooting. Christina Stevens
reports
The crowd chanted
“Shame!” with a handful of protesters angrily confronting police monitoring the
march. Marchers briefly stopped outside a local police station, venting at the
force’s handling of the incident.
The protest started at
5 p.m. with hundreds of people gathering at Yonge and Dundas Square. The
protest then moved west along Dundas Street stopping at various intersections
and police stations along the way.
Yatim was killed
during an altercation with police late on Friday night while aboard the 505 TTC
streetcar on Dundas Street West near Bellwoods Avenue.
The shooting is being
investigated by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU).
A Facebook group,
Sammy’s Fight for Justice, with almost 6,000 likes as of 4 p.m. has become a
rallying point for people ahead of the planned protest.
“Can’t wait to see
your posters and support and please don’t forget this is a civilized protest
for anyone who is against the injustice way police officers treat innocent
people, and it is also a memorial for Sammy!” a post on the page reads.
The shooting has many
people, including Yatim’s mother, questioning why the police fired nine shots
at her son.
“The thing I care
that, they shoot my kid, my son and I didn’t know why. I watched the video, he
was standing with a knife, not with a [gun] but with a knife and I felt that he
was very afraid, I felt it. I felt that he was very afraid,” Sahar Bahadi
told Global News in an interview at her Toronto home.
And a memorial of
flowers and anonymous notes has grown around a light pole near Dundas Street
West and Bellwoods Avenue where the shooting happened. Messages left in
tribute to Yatim read “You were everyone’s son, everyone’s child” and “you
asked for help and we failed you.”
Another message, taped
to the pole, read simply “You mattered.”
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