Jermaine Carby ID’d as victim of Brampton police shooting

The man shot and killed during a police traffic stop in Brampton, Ont., has been identified by CBC News as Jermaine Anthony Carby, a man once described by Vancouver law enforcement as a well-known “street-level enforcer” in that city’s notorious Downtown Eastside. 

Carby, 33, died after he was shot shortly after 10:04 p.m. ET on Wednesday night at Queen Street and Kennedy Road in Brampton, about 45 kilometres west of Toronto, according to Peel Regional Police.

Mourners, including family member Shanice Khan, gathered there at a modest memorial on Thursday. 

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“When I heard about it I was devastated. He's like a father figure to my daughter. My daughter loves him so much – she loves him more than she loves her dad. It's weird, she just had a real connection with him,” she told CBC News. Khan said Carby and the father of her young daughter were brothers. 

​Vancouver police asked for the public's help in 2011 after Carby was charged with manslaughter and assault. Police said at the time Carby had a long history of violence, drug trafficking and drug possession, and they called on any other victims to come forward. 

But Khan described Carby as a “good guy” who had come to Toronto to help his mother. 

“He takes my daughter out for ice cream. He takes her to the movies, he brought her back-to-school shopping,” she said. 

‘Drop the knife’ 

Eyewitness Richard Appleby told CBC News he saw the shooting while outside on a break from his job at Crabby Joe's restaurant. He said the man now identified as Carby was slowly walking toward officers with his arms outstretched when he was shot.

"I heard the police officer say 'drop the knife' a couple of times and something to effect of 'don't make us shoot you," Appleby said. "Like, 'we don't want to shoot you, drop the knife.'"

Appleby said he heard four shots but did not see a knife.

Police said he was taken without vital signs to Brampton Civic Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

"I had never seen anybody get shot. I've never seen a real gun even be shot," said Appleby. "It's not like the movies. I just saw him drop. I was just praying that they were rubber bullets. I don't know what was going on. I thought they were going to Taser him."

The province's Special Investigations Unit — which probes all instances in which someone is killed or injured during an interaction with police — has been called in.

He was not previously identified because his family had not consented to the release of his name.