The family of Tylor Coore, a 32-year-old Afro-Indigenous man from Whitebear First Nation, have identified him as the man police shot in Cabbagetown Tuesday. They’re now fighting for justice, saying he had mental health issues and guns should never have been involved.
The incident happened Tuesday evening in downtown Toronto, near Parliament and Carlton streets. Police say officers responded to a report of a man in the area with a knife. Officers began interacting with him, police say, and one shot him with her firearm.
The man was taken to hospital with serious injuries, police said in a release Wednesday.
The family of Tylor Coore say he’s the man police shot, and that he remains in intensive care.
The Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which investigates incidents involving police in which death or serious injury occurs, invoked its mandate Tuesday and began investigating the incident. Under the SIU Act, police and SIU said they could neither confirm or deny the man’s identity.
But the family says Coore was on the receiving end of the gunshot. They’ve set up a Go Fund Me page online to help cover the cost of legal fees for Tylor. As of Saturday afternoon, over 500 donations had been made, almost totalling the family’s target $20,000.
Coore’s family says Coore has schizophrenia, and was having a breakdown when police were called. His mother, Cheryl Maxie, says a confrontation with guns wasn’t what he needed.
“My son had mental issues,” she told a crowd outside Toronto Police downtown headquarters Friday, with tears in her eyes. “You know that there’s other ways of dealing with people with mental health [issues].”
Maxie was speaking at a rally organized by Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction, and led by the family of Regis Korchinski-Paquet. She was also Afro-Indigenous and died in 2020 after falling from her apartment balcony with police officers present in her home. The SIU investigated that incident, ultimately clearing officers of any wrongdoing.
The family has since been calling for police reform in the city. Korchinski-Paquet’s father spoke at Friday’s rally.
“We should not have to be out here for Tylor. The police had no business doing what they did to him,” said Peter Korchinski.
Toronto police told CBC Saturday they could not comment on the incident as it’s under investigation, deferring to SIU. CBC did not hear back from SIU before publication Saturday.
Coore’s brother, Jama Maxie, is the one who started Coore’s Go Fund Me page. Along with raising funds for legal representation, he said he hopes it will raise awareness for the need for more mental health supports in the city.
He says he and his brother grew up separately in foster care, but formed a close bond in their teens that’s stayed strong ever since. When he heard what happened, he says he punched a wall in frustration, breaking his hand.
“I couldn’t emotionally regulate,” he said in an interview Saturday.
“You don’t think those things are real. It’s unimaginable,” he said. “When you’re going through that you’re thinking, like, am I going to be able to hug him again?”
Maxie says although his brother remains in intensive care, he’s doing better and his breathing tube’s been removed. He says his brother has struggled with mental health, housing and finances, but is resilient.
“When I think of Tylor, I think of someone who’s been through a lot, but he’s tough,” he said.
Police did not say whether Coore had been charged in Tuesday’s incident.