A body lies under a yellow tarp beside an SUV outside the departures area at Toronto Pearson International Airport on April 24.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
A 30-year-old man was fatally shot by two officers after he produced a firearm at the curbside outside Toronto Pearson International Airport on Thursday morning, officials say.
The shooting occurred after a dispute between the man and several other people who appeared to know each other and were intending to travel, according to Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah.
Peel police responded to a 9-1-1 call around 7 a.m. from one of the people involved in the incident, Kristy Denette, a spokeswoman for the Special Investigations Unit, the provincial police watchdog, told reporters at the scene. She said the caller told police the man was in mental distress and acting erratically.
When police first arrived outside the Terminal 1 departures area, the man was in the back seat of a grey Jeep Grand Cherokee, Ms. Denette said.
The man produced a firearm but didn’t fire the weapon, she said. Officers spent several minutes trying to de-escalate the situation before firing. After officers shot the man, they performed CPR and first aid, but the man died at the scene.
At least one officer was wearing a body camera, Ms. Denette said. The footage is under review.
Police said it was an isolated incident, and not an attack on the airport.
Ms. Denette said the SIU, which investigates all fatal shootings involving police, has identified the victim and informed his family but would not release his name.
Jordan Zdreng was at the airport working at the bag-wrapping service when the incident occurred.
He said he heard the gunshots go off. Looking toward the direction of the sound, he saw a woman running inside, saying that there had been a shooting.
Mr. Zdreng said most of the people inside the airport remained calm.
Very soon afterward, two police cruisers with their lights flashing pulled up to the scene outside, he said. While the roads to Terminal 1 were blocked and no one was allowed in through the entrance, people inside the airport continued to check in to their flights and carry on as usual.
Mr. Zdreng said the incident was “pretty shocking,” but that “police responded fast.”
“Everyone was kept safe,” he said.
Daniela Gil, who arrived at Pearson from Seattle, heard about the incident on Instagram after she landed at the airport at around 2 p.m. She said she was relieved to hear that it was over and there was no threat to the public.
“It looks like everything’s okay,” she said.
Ms. Gil said there was a short delay upon landing.
At around 11 a.m., a yellow tarp covered a body on the ground, next to the grey SUV, with more than a dozen police vehicles nearby. There were evidence markers scattered around the scene and yellow police tape was draped over one of the front wheels of an empty First Student school bus parked nearby.
The roadway to the Terminal 1 departures area was closed as of mid-afternoon but the parking garage remained open, according to a post on X by Toronto Pearson. Both passengers and cars were being rerouted to Terminal 1 arrivals.
The airport said that because of the investigation outside its departures level, it was rerouting passengers to enter and exit Terminal 1 through the arrivals area.
Highway 409 heading toward the Terminal 1 arrivals area remained closed as of mid-afternoon. However, flights were continuing without disruption, according to Pearson Airport.
The SIU has assigned six investigators and three forensic investigators to the case. A postmortem exam is scheduled for Friday morning, the SIU said.
With reports from Colin Freeze and The Canadian Press
Editor’s note: A headline on an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Toronto Police shot a man. It was Peel Regional Police.