Sammy Yatim’s shooting death by a former Toronto police officer was a homicide, a coroner’s inquest has found more than a decade after his death.
Yatim, a teen at the time of the shooting, was alone on a streetcar and holding a small knife when he was hit by two volleys of shots shortly after midnight on July 27, 2013.
In 2016, the officer who shot him, then-Const. James Forcillo, was found not guilty of second-degree murder in connection with the first volley of bullets, which court heard was fatal, but was convicted of attempted murder for the second volley, fired when Yatim was already on the ground.
Forcillo was sentenced to six and a half years behind bars and was granted full parole in 2020.
Jurors made 63 recommendations on Thursday, including that peer intervention training, which already exists within the Toronto Police Service, should be made a mandatory component of officers’ annual re-qualification process.
The training should emphasize that officers who intervene will not face repercussions, jurors said.