SIU probe into stabbing focuses on two Hamilton officers

The Ontario Special Investigations Unit (SIU) says it is going to probe the involvement of two officers in an arrest after a Saturday night stabbing spree in east Hamilton.

A 27-year-old male suspect sustained a broken ankle after a foot chase with police outsidean apartment building in the city'sParkdale neighbourhood.

• Related:SIU probe launched after east Hamilton stabbing

The pursuit followed a stabbing spree that sent four residents of the apartment complex at 221 Melvin Ave. to hospital. According to witnesses, a man burst into at least two apartments, attacking a mother and her adult son on the eighth floor and a husband and wife on the main level.

Paramedics took four victims plus the suspect to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

SIU spokeswoman Jasbir Brar says the provincial probe will focus on the roletwo officers played in the confrontation. The SIU will also call on at least eight other officers who witnessed thechase to provide testimony.

The SIU is called in any time police are involved in an incident in which someone is severely injured, dies or alleges sexual assault. Itcan lay charges if officers are found to have used excessive force ininteractions withmembers of the public.

Saturday nights violent rampage started just before 10 p.m. on Saturday, police say.

• Related: Man recounts fending off attacker in Hamilton stabbing spree

The suspect allegedly ran out of the building and was then spotted by police.

A resident of the complexs fifth floor, who asked not to be named, saysshe saw the chase. A man, she said, ran up the buildings fire escape to a building next door in an attempt to evade officers.

He went up on the balcony on the building behind the pizza place, said the woman, who refused to give her name. He was trying to kick in the door to get in there.

The man failed to break in, she said, and police yelled at him about three times to drop his weapon.

• Related: Did Tasers save a life in an east end stabbing rampage?

They kept asking him, 'Please drop the knife. Drop the knife. You have nowhere to go.' "

Then, the woman said, she heard three or four shots from what sounded like aTaser, followed by a voice yelling "'If you dont drop the knife, were going to have toTaseyou again.' "