SHOOTINGS IN MALTON

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Malton is a small bedroom community of 40,000 inhabitants in the northeastern part of the city of Mississauga which is located to the northwest of Toronto, Canada’s largest largest city. Malton is bounded by  Highway 427  and  Finch Avenue which is the border with Toronto to the north east, the Brampton city limits which is  south of Steeles Avenue to the north, Airport Road to the west, and the CN rail line to the north and the Toronto Pearson International Airport to the south west.  

It has 18 schools, It also has six pharmacies, five medical clinics, and two dental clinics.  It has three churches and a Sikh temple. It has a large Mall and Walmart and Popeye’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a MacDonald’s, It has two other restaurants.  It has a library, a public  swimming pool, two parks and an ice rink and it is close to two other major malls. It also has a large outdoors bus depot. It is connected to three major highways.

My wife and a I and our two daughters moved into Malton in 1992 and later when our daughters grew up, they moved into Mississauga and Brampton which are  only a 20 minute drive away from our home.

Malton is unique in that it does not adjoin with any other neighbourhood and it has no factories, so the air is fresh.

The community is a great place to live in.  It does however have a problem like many towns and cities elsewhere.  For the most part, crime is not prevalent in this community.  However, there have been some shootings over the years which is common in other communities.

Our street is a short one and before we moved into Malton, a black man was shot dead at one end of the street and several years later after we move into Malton, an0ther black man was shot dead at the other end of our street. I was so angry when I discussed that shooting with the television crew, they asked me if they could televise my views in my home of that shooting, I agreed and the televised conversation was broadcasted   that night.

Malton has seen only one homicide so far this year when 17-year-old Adrian Ducas, who was shot dead inside the Malton Community Centre  in early July, compared to four persons  shot last year, and six in 2008.

In  September 16^th , 2019, Police say that at least seven individuals armed with semi-automatic handguns “indiscriminately” opened fire on a group filming a rap video in a Malton, parkette on that Saturday evening, killing an  innocent bystander in the process. The shooting occurred in the parkette behind an apartment complex near Morning Star and Goreway Drives at around 6:30 p.m.

A 17-year-old boy was pronounced dead at the scene while five others sustained serious injuries. Those victims include a 13-year-old girl, a 16-year-old boy, two 17-year-old boys and a woman in her 50s.  The shooters were black.

I don’t know if the shooters were in a gang  in Malton or were members of a gang in nearby North west Toronto.

The Ontario’s police watchdog are examining the fatal officer-involved shooting of man in Malton. the Peel Regional Police said emergency crews were called to an apartment building on Morningstar Drive, near Goreway Drive, on Saturday June 220^th  2020.to respond to a man in crisis who had not been taking his medication.  “Communication was made with the man. However, he had barricaded himself inside his residence,” Constable Sarah Patten told reporters

“Due to information received on the extensive medical history that the man had as well as the man refusing to speak to police any longer, the decision was made to enter the residence to check on his well-being.

“Upon entering, an interaction did occur between police and the man, and shots were fired by police. Despite efforts made by paramedics, the man succumb to his injuries.”

Patten said officers were informed that the man in question had access to weapons, but she did not specify exactly what type of weapons they were told he had.

Choudry’s nephew, Khizar Shahzab, said his uncle had a knife when paramedics originally arrived, which he claims led to them to informing the police that he was armed.

Paten added that they believed the man was a danger to himself. As it turned out, the danger he faced was the police officer that shot him. The police should have sent a plain-clothed officer trained in dealing with people such as the man who was in distress

.“We’ve dealt with this many, many times,” said Shahzab about his uncle’s mental illness, adding that Choudry was also physically frail. distressed instead of a gun-happy cop. The cop should have used a taser again instead of his handgun.

The man’s family, who identified him as 62-year-old Ejaz Choudry, said he was schizophrenic and was physically frail.

Muhammad Choudry said he has dealt with his uncle while in crisis before and that “he’s always calm when his family talks to him.” Based on that knowledge, he claimed he and other members of the family asked police if they could personally help calm his uncle down to avoid a situation like this. However, Muhammad Choudry alleged they were rebuffed by the police who wanted to handle the problem themselves.

Shahzab claimed he told police that if they approached his uncle aggressively his uncle would react violently and that police would end up killing him.

An officer told Shahzab word for word, ‘We will go upstairs peacefully,'” A video circulating online purporting to have been taken at the scene appeared to show three tactical officers standing on a second-floor balcony with a ladder behind themThey had gone to the back of the building with a ladder.

The police could be seen kicking open a door and can be heard yelling, “Ejaz! Put it down! Put the knife down!” It appeared that officers fired a volley of five shots before entering the unit and yelling “put the knife down” again and then two more shots were heard.

According to a press release issued by the Special Investigations Unit early Sunday, the watchdog agency said that the police first used a Taser and plastic projectiles from a riot control gun. When those allegedly proved ineffective, they used lethal bullets. This is definitely not the way to deal with a distressed 62-year-old man who is mentally ill.

My wife and I have lived in Malton for 45 years and this is the first time there has been a police shooting since we moved into Malton in 1992. I hope it is the last time.  Now we only have to deal with shootings by criminals.

It is ironic when you consider what it was like living in the      forties in Canada. My mother took me and my brother to live in Wells, British Columbia, It was a small mining town in which 27 thousand people lived in Wells. We lived there from 1941 until 1945 and all that time, the town’s one only police officer was hardly called and it was to deal with drunks. There were no crimes committed at all in Wells during those years when we were there.  WOW! Times have certainly changed in the last 79 years.