The teenage girl fatally stabbed amid what London police described as a domestic violence call that resulted in officers fatally shooting an 18-year-old man is being remembered as a “shining star.”
Friday, London police identified the girl stabbed during the July 16 melee at an east-end home as 17-year-old Breanna Broadfoot. On social media, loved ones write they are “beyond heartbroken” after she died of her injuries.
“Our firstborn, our daughter, our shining star. We are sorry this happened to you,” reads a handwritten letter shared on Facebook by Broadfoot’s mother, Jessica Broadfoot, who couldn’t be immediately reached for further comment.
“We are beyond heartbroken for what you have gone through. Dad and I wish upon every star that we could take your place right now. We are so proud of the woman you are. You have the biggest heart.”
Broadfoot was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries after police descended shortly before midnight on Tuesday to a home on Wellesley Crescent, near the Clarke Road-Trafalgar Street intersection, following a domestic violence call, Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said at the time.
Authorities said officers arrived at the home and found a man with a knife, and a man and a woman who had been stabbed.
The injured man had since been released from hospital, authorities said, adding a third man in the home wasn’t injured.
Two police officers fired their guns at the knife-wielding man, who later died in hospital, said officials with the SIU, which probes all cases of civilian injury or death involving police in Ontario.
As part of this investigation, eight London police officers and two civilians have been interviewed, said Kristy Denette, an SIU spokesperson. The organization will not publicly identify the 18-year-old man who was shot dead.
The man’s death is the first fatal London police shooting since July 2023, when 35-year-old Cesar Hernandez was shot dead during a standoff at a Pond Mills home he’d entered after shooting a man nearby. There have now been four fatal police shootings in London over the last decade.
Little was known Friday about the circumstances that led to the stabbing of Broadfoot and the subsequent police shooting. Neighbours said a family lived in the home where the violence occurred.
By Thursday night, London police were no long present at the home on Wellesley Crescent. All curtains at the home were drawn closed. Blood could still be seen on a white side door.
Broadfoot’s death is the second in the city over the past month in which police have indicated domestic violence may have been a factor.
Cheryl Sheldon, 62, died after she was found by police officers with life-threatening injuries in the area of Wharncliffe Road North and Western Road at about midnight on June 14. George Kenneth Curtis, 44, who friends of Sheldon have said was her boyfriend, is charged with second-degree murder in the case.
Broadfoot’s mother wrote in the publicly posted letter: “We promise you with our entire hearts that we will somehow find you justice. We will do anything in our power to make sure this violence doesn’t happen to any other woman.”
A vigil in honour of Broadfoot is being organized by relatives and friends, and is scheduled take place at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Ed Blake Park in northeast London.