Man struck with bean-bag police shotgun at Toronto hospital seriously injured: SIU

Ontario’s police watchdog says a 26-year-old man was seriously injured when he was shot by police with a bean bag round fired from a “less-lethal” shotgun at a Toronto hospital.

The Special Investigations Unit says the man was allegedly brandishing a “sharp-edged weapon.”

The SIU says officers were called at 10:30 a.m. Sunday to Centenary Hospital in Toronto’s east end.

They say police negotiated with the man and an officer shot him with a gun that fires bean-bag rounds.

The man suffered serious, non-life-threatening injuries.

As of this year, the SIU no longer investigates all cases where police shoot at a person with anti-riot weapons or with rounds characterized as “less-lethal” because the province recently passed regulations to exclude them from the definition of a firearm.

The watchdog still investigates all cases of police conduct resulting in serious injury, death or sexual assault.