The Toronto police officer who shot a man carrying a knife in a park in 2023 has pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm and careless use of a firearm.
Const. Andrew Davis entered the plea at an Ontario court in Toronto Wednesday morning.
Davis was facing different charges than the ones he pleaded guilty to for his role in the shooting of Devon Fowlin in February 2023. Months after that shooting, Davis was charged with aggravated assault and discharging a firearm with intent to maim, wound, disfigure or endanger life.
On Feb. 27 of that year, officers were called to a park in the area of Black Creek Drive and Trethewey Drive for a report of a man with a knife, according to the agreed statement of facts submitted to the court. Two officers discharged Tasers at the man, while another officer — Davis — fired his gun twice.
Around 7:50 a.m., a civilian had seen Fowlin walking in a park in the area with an unleashed dog, talking to himself and “swinging a knife around, and over his head,” the court document said.
Fowlin had lost his job about two years prior and was living out of his vehicle at the time, having camped out in the park the night before, the document said. He had consumed cannabis before officers arrived on the scene.
When they arrived and engaged with Fowlin, he was exiting his vehicle and a sheathed knife was visible in the waistband of his left hip, the statement of facts said. The officers had body-worn cameras, which recorded the incident, the document said.
Fowlin began walking toward the officers, coming within several feet, but was told to stop moving and raise his hands, the document said. Instead, he began to back away as one officer told him to get on the ground and “let me see your hands.”
Fowlin continued back-pedaling from police with his knife sheathed when the first officer told him again to “get down on the ground,” before she fired her Taser at him, the statement said. It was ineffective and Fowlin kept back-pedallng as the officers told him to drop the knife. Fowlin then unsheathed the knife and drew it to his neck.
As he cut his neck, one of the officers “advanced forward yelling, ‘oh my god, shoot him,'” the court document said.
Another officer fired his Taser and Const. Davis fired two bullets at Fowlin, causing multiple wounds, the statement said. Fowlin stumbled briefly, then fled on foot briefly before he was apprehended.
Fowlin was taken to hospital with serious injuries, but later recovered. Since then, Fowlin has spoken out about the shooting, saying police did not try to de-escalate the situation before firing at him.
A report from Toronto’s police chief last year found Davis used unnecessary force against Fowlin. He did not try to de-escalate the situation and acted in a “disorderly manner” likely to discredit the police, the report said.
Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse Wednesday, lawyer David Shellnutt, who is representing Fowlin in a civil suit against Toronto Police Service, said it was a miracle his client wasn’t killed. He said the evidence showed that a senior officer had instructed a junior officer “to shoot an individual who is far away and not presenting any threat to them and who is harming himself.”
“Their response to a person in need, to a person who needed immediate support, was to shoot and kill him, attempt to kill him. What else is the outcome that comes from that kind of order?” he said.
Davis and his lawyer declined reporters’ requests for comment outside the courthouse Wednesday.
Desmond Cole, an activist and friend of Fowlin’s, told reporters that Davis’s guilty plea was a small victory, calling it “a limited form of justice.”
“The police in Toronto and our city have really not done much to make it less likely that shootings like the one that Devon experienced will happen in the future,” Cole said. “Until our city decides that — particularly in situations of mental health crises —there is a non-police, non-lethal response, until we get there, this is guaranteed to happen again.”
