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Gregg Moynagh, the Mississauga man who was shot dead by police yesterday morning outside his father’s apartment, was bipolar and had battled mental illness for years.
This weekend, he began taking new medication. Friends were hopeful he’d get better. Then yesterday, just days before Christmas, the 25-year-old snapped.
“He had been screaming earlier,” said Affan, who lives across the hall and declined to give his full name. “When the police arrived, they told him to come out. He wouldn’t. The next thing I heard was police saying, ‘Lay down the knives.’ Then there were two gunshots.”
Investigators said a 911 call came in to Peel police at about 1 a.m. yesterday that a distraught male was yelling and throwing things off a fifth-floor balcony.
Four officers arrived at 28 Helene St. N. in Port Credit. They knocked on the door and asked Moynagh to come outside, Affan said.
Moynagh was shot in the hallway after allegedly lunging at police officers. Investigators recovered two knives at the scene.
The province’s Special Investigations Unit, which probes all cases of serious injury or death involving police, is investigating.
SIU spokesperson John Yoannou said no one else was in the apartment at the time.
Michelle Burry, a friend who bumped into Moynagh on Thursday, said he talked of police and a disturbance.
“It’s so strange now. He was telling me — as if it had already happened — how he was throwing things off the balcony, then when he threw stuff off the cops had apparently come,” she said.
Moynagh planned to pick up new medication that night, Burry thinks she remembers him saying.
“He’s a really nice guy. Really funny, too. It’s sad. He definitely didn’t deserve this,” said Burry.
This weekend, he began taking new medication. Friends were hopeful he’d get better. Then yesterday, just days before Christmas, the 25-year-old snapped.
“He had been screaming earlier,” said Affan, who lives across the hall and declined to give his full name. “When the police arrived, they told him to come out. He wouldn’t. The next thing I heard was police saying, ‘Lay down the knives.’ Then there were two gunshots.”
Investigators said a 911 call came in to Peel police at about 1 a.m. yesterday that a distraught male was yelling and throwing things off a fifth-floor balcony.
Four officers arrived at 28 Helene St. N. in Port Credit. They knocked on the door and asked Moynagh to come outside, Affan said.
Moynagh was shot in the hallway after allegedly lunging at police officers. Investigators recovered two knives at the scene.
The province’s Special Investigations Unit, which probes all cases of serious injury or death involving police, is investigating.
SIU spokesperson John Yoannou said no one else was in the apartment at the time.
Michelle Burry, a friend who bumped into Moynagh on Thursday, said he talked of police and a disturbance.
“It’s so strange now. He was telling me — as if it had already happened — how he was throwing things off the balcony, then when he threw stuff off the cops had apparently come,” she said.
Moynagh planned to pick up new medication that night, Burry thinks she remembers him saying.
“He’s a really nice guy. Really funny, too. It’s sad. He definitely didn’t deserve this,” said Burry.
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