In the frantic moments after bullets flew inside Muzik nightclub, a man with blood soaking through the front of his shirt stumbled into a nearby cab. Staff. Sgt. Joseph Matthews was watching from inside his cruiser, stopped near the outside the club. After the call came over the police radio reporting gunfire, he’d driven to the west side of the club, near where the initial shooting took place, and spotted the visibly wounded man.He didn’t know if the injured man was armed, and knew there was an ongoing shooting unfolding nearby, north of the club. But “looking into his eyes, you kinda knew that he wasn’t a threat to me at that point, he was just a victim looking for help,” Matthews said in an interview with the Star Wednesday. For his actions that day — including administering first aid amidst what he says was an angry and confused crowd — Matthews, now a detective sergeant, was named the 2016 Police Officer of the Year by the Toronto Region Board of Trade on Tuesday night. “There was so much chaos. And you can’t plan for those incidents — you just hope you react as best you can,” Matthews said. Ariela Navarro-Fenoy, 26, and Duvel Hibbert, 23, were killed in the early morning of August 4, 2015, when gunfire erupted first inside the club, then continued outside. Three other people were people were injured. Navarro-Fenoy was a victim caught in the crossfire — shot outside the club after cabbies refused to take her because her fare home was too low — while Hibbert was believed to be the intended target. No arrests have been made in the shooting. Responding immediately after the shooting, Matthews says he pulled the wounded man out of the taxi, laid him down on the ground, began administering first aid and applied pressure to his wounds. Around him a crowd began to gather, and Matthews says some people started questioning why he wasn’t immediately putting the injured ...
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