Man Wrongly Accused In Mall Shooting Sues Toronto Police

A man wrongly named as a suspect in a robbery and shooting this week is suing Toronto police and the shopping mall where the alleged crime took place.

Just before Fairview Mall was about to close at 9pm on Monday, two men allegedly stole a bottle of cologne from The Bay and shot at a security guard who confronted them outside the store. The pair fled into a housing complex across from the mall, at Don Mills Road and Sheppard Avenue East.

A mall security camera was used to identify 29-year-old Shaun Mobeen as a suspect. A second was used to clear him, proving he was somewhere else at the time the shots were fired.

“They put my name and my face out there,” he said. “My mom had to go to work. All her co-workers hearing about this [said], ‘You’re son’s on the news. He stole cologne and he shot the officer.’”

When Mobeen saw the grainy surveillance video, he was shocked police could think he and the suspect were the same person. “I turned and I laughed. I said, ‘Are you guys crazy?’ [Some] guys were like, ‘Yeah, it’s you. Yeah, it’s you.’ There were still a couple of officers who were like, ‘Turn this way and that way.’ But there were some good guys in there that had sense and they were like, ‘You know what? This is not the guy. Look at this guy’s size. Look at his face. Look at his beard. This is not the guy.’”

The lawsuit will cite negligence, libel and abuse of office. Mobeen’s lawyer says race is a factor as well. “You just don’t look at someone and say they fit a profile or they match a description and you go after them without a proper investigation,” said Selwyn Pieters. “So that may be another issue to be raised in this case – racial profiling.”

Pieters said why police had Mobeen’s mugshot is irrelevant, and the bigger issue is why police were so quick to name a suspect with so little information. That argument is being echoed at Queen’s Park as well.

“This case cries out for some reassessment of the process police have to go through before they publish, broadcast an image of a person who, in this case, ended up definitely not being the perpetrator,” said NDP Justice Critic, Peter Kormos.

Police say the misidentification was unfortunate, but that they followed protocol. Under the criminal code they had reasonable grounds to issue an arrest warrant for Mobeen.

“They reviewed the footage,” said Cst. Tony Vella. “It looked very much like him. They had the reasonable grounds to issue the warrant. But as soon as they realized he was not the man responsible, they released him immediately and they also removed his photo from the press release.”

Police are still looking for the two suspects in Monday night’s shooting.

Original report here




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