By Selena Ross, CTV Montreal
MONTREAL — A family friend of the man who was shot and killed by Montreal police on Thursday says he worked at a seniors’ home, though he struggled with poverty.
Sheffield Matthews, 41, was also a father, and he spent nearly all his earnings on his children, to the extent that he sometimes went hungry, said Sabrina Folland in a video posted on Facebook on Friday afternoon.
“I want people to know who he was, and I don’t want him to be painted…as something that he’s not,” said Folland, who described Matthews as “a very good family friend.”
Matthews, who was Black, died early Thursday after police shot him on a thoroughfare in the NDG borough in west-end Montreal.
He was in crisis and wielding a knife when officers drove up around 6 a.m., according to the police watchdog agency, which is now investigating how police handled the case. The officers stepped out of their vehicle and ended up shooting him.
"I just don’t really want to talk too much about the situation, but I want to talk about Sheffield’s character,” said Folland, who cried throughout the video.
She said she didn’t want him to simply be “transformed” into a narrative of “someone who was was just suffering with mental illness and wasn’t doing well and that racist police shot him.”
She said Matthews was a gentle person overall who had a really dark moment.
“Sheffield was working in an old folks' home, taking care of old people,” she said.
“He was so kind, so thoughtful, you know, working in that environment—it's not always easy and a lot of people don't want to do it. But he did it and he did it well.”