Hamilton Police fatally shoot man

Updated:

[projekktor id=’25592′]

36 year old Anthony Divers has been identified as the man shot and killed by Hamilton police Friday night. Divers’ wife, Maddy who was too upset to go on camera but gave us information from her perspective that night. Maddy says she had just finished work and met her husband nearby. Security footage on King William street shows a man speaking with a woman, a security guard. They appear to be having a conversation when the man abruptly strikes the woman in the face before walking away. Maddy divers says it was her who was hit that night by her husband Anthony. Maddy says her husband hit her but she didn’t call police she thought that Anthony was having some kind of mental break but she says she was not prepared for what happened next.

Police responded and spoke with Maddy, meanwhile another officer recognized Anthony who was now blocks away walking in the middle of James street between Bold and Hunter near the Go station. By the time cameras arrived police and paramedics were pounding on Anthony Divers chest trying to revive him.

The Special Investigations Unit has released few details so far but says “there was an interaction and the officer discharged his firearm”. Anthony Divers was shot, rushed to hospital and pronounced dead.

The SIU says there were reports that the man they were looking for was armed with a gun. The police watchdog won’t say whether they found any weapons on him that night or where the reports came from. Maddy told CHCH that her husband did not have a gun.

Anthony Divers spent most of his adult life behind bars. In 2002 he was found guilty of murder, he served a 10 year sentence for breaking into a home, beating and stabbing 26 year old Ryan MacDonald to death. While Maddy acknowledges her husband had a troubled past she says he was turning his life around and was an incredible father to her children. She doesn’t understand why the police resorted to shooting Anthony instead of using a taser. The investigation is far from over, the SIU is urging anyone with information who saw the shooting to come forward.