Director's Report Details

The Special Investigations Unit is a civilian law enforcement agency that investigates incidents involving police officers where there has been death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault. The Unit’s jurisdiction covers more than 50 municipal, regional and provincial police services across Ontario.

Under the Police Services Act, the Director of the SIU must determine based on the evidence gathered in an investigation whether an officer has committed a criminal offence in connection with the incident under investigation. If, after an investigation, there are reasonable grounds to believe that an offence was committed, the Director has the authority to lay a criminal charge against the officer. Alternatively, in all cases where no reasonable grounds exist, the Director does not lay criminal charges but files a report with the Attorney General communicating the results of an investigation.

Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (“FIPPA”)

Pursuant to section 14 of FIPPA (i.e., law enforcement), certain information may not be included in this report. This information may include, but is not limited to, the following:

• Confidential investigative techniques and procedures used by law enforcement agencies; and
• Information whose release could reasonably be expected to interfere with a law enforcement matter or an investigation undertaken with a view to a law enforcement proceeding. 

Pursuant to section 21 of FIPPA (i.e., personal privacy), protected personal information is not included in this document. This information may include, but is not limited to, the following:

• Subject Officer name(s);
• Witness Officer name(s);
• Civilian Witness name(s);
• Location information; 
• Witness statements and evidence gathered in the course of the investigation provided to the SIU in confidence; and 
• Other identifiers which are likely to reveal personal information about individuals involved in the investigation.

Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (“PHIPA”)

Pursuant to PHIPA, any information related to the personal health of identifiable individuals is not included.

Other proceedings, processes, and investigations

Information may have also been excluded from this report because its release could undermine the integrity of other proceedings involving the same incident, such as criminal proceedings, coroner’s inquests, other public proceedings and/or other law enforcement investigations.

The Unit’s investigative jurisdiction is limited to those incidents where there is a serious injury (including sexual assault allegations) or death in cases involving the police.

“Serious injuries” shall include those that are likely to interfere with the health or comfort of the victim and are more than merely transient or trifling in nature and will include serious injury resulting from sexual assault. “Serious Injury” shall initially be presumed when the victim is admitted to hospital, suffers a fracture to a limb, rib or vertebrae or to the skull, suffers burns to a major portion of the body or loses any portion of the body or suffers loss of vision or hearing, or alleges sexual assault. Where a prolonged delay is likely before the seriousness of the injury can be assessed, the Unit should be notified so that it can monitor the situation and decide on the extent of its involvement.

This report relates to the SIU’s investigation into a serious injury sustained by a 29-year-old man (the Complainant)

Notification of the SIU

On May 2, 2020 at 11:20 a.m., the Peel Regional Police (PRP) contacted the SIU to report an incident. According to the PRP, on May 2, 2020 at 9:23 a.m., PRP went to an address in Mississauga. An individual had called the police to report that a family member had come to her house and said she “killed her husband”. Police officers went to the home of the family member at Holden Crescent. The officers entered the house and found the Complainant cutting his throat with a knife. the Complainant saw the police officers and ran at them brandishing a knife. The SO discharged her firearm striking the Complainant. 

The Scene

The scene was in the backyard of a residence in Holden Crescent. The entrance to the backyard was through a gate at the end of the driveway. A large shed in the backyard had a large pooling of blood and a single shoe, glasses and a cellular telephone.

Physical Evidence

The following items were collected at the scene:

• 3 cartridge cases;
• 6 Conducted Energy Weapon (CEW) probes;
• CEW wires;
• A CEW;
• 5 CEW blast doors;
• 2 CEW anti-felon identification tags;
• Black jacket (2 pieces); and
• Purple track pants.

The material events in question are apparent on the evidence collected by the SIU, which included statements from three witness officers who observed the shooting and a number of civilian witnesses. The investigation was also assisted by a review of the police communication recordings, and forensic examination of the incident scene and items of evidence. As was her legal right, the SO declined to interview with the SIU or authorize the release of her incident notes.

At about 9:29 a.m. on May 2, 2020, the SO discharged her semi-automatic handgun at the Complainant three times at close range. Bloodied and severely injured, the Complainant had just emerged from a garden shed situated in the backyard of the house on Holden Crescent. He was holding a large serrated knife in his right hand and bleeding from lacerations to the neck. The Complainant was felled by a shot that struck his lower right leg.

In the minutes prior to the shooting, the Complainant had embarked on a violent rampage through the neighbourhood. Shortly after being involved in a motor vehicle collision in the intersection of Cawthra and Burnhamthorpe Roads, the Complainant exited his vehicle and assaulted an elderly gentlemen, taking his bicycle and setting off toward Hassall Road. He made his way to Holden Crescent, southwest of the intersection, broke into the home and attacked one of the homeowners with a knife. Thereafter, he violently attacked his wife, CW #4, causing her serious injuries. CW #4 was able to make her way to her son’s house.

Arriving at her son’s home, a frantic CW #4 reported that someone had broken into her home and her husband was dead. The police were called as CW #4’s son began to make his way to his parents’ home to check on his father.

The Complainant had left the residence and was in the backyard of the adjoining home on Holden Crescent. There he attacked CW #9 with a knife, causing serious injuries.

Officers began arriving on Holden Crescent and were advised by a neighbour that the Complainant had been seen entering a shed in the backyard of a residence on Holden Crescent. WO #1 and the SO made their way to the rear of the residence and attempted to open the shed door. Something was resisting their efforts but they were able to push the door open a small amount. Looking into the shed, WO #1 could see the Complainant. He began to repeatedly shout words to the effect of, “They’re trying to kill me. You’re going to have to kill me.” WO #1 and the SO began to direct the Complainant to exit the shed with his hands up. When he failed to do so, WO #1 closed the door and decided to wait for additional police officers to arrive; the officer was unaware at the time of CW #9’s presence in the shed.

WO #1 spoke with the SO and it was decided he would draw his CEW as the SO stood ready with her firearm. Seconds later, the Complainant opened the shed door and walked through it. He held a kitchen knife with a serrated blade in his left hand. [2] The knife and the Complainant were covered in blood. The Complainant was cutting the left side of his neck with the knife. WO #1 fired his CEW at the Complainant. Though temporarily halted, [3] the Complainant remained standing and started to walk toward the officers. As he did so, the Complainant indicated he had escaped from a hospital where staff had tried to kill him and yelled that the SO had to kill him. The officers walked backward away from the Complainant while ordering him to drop the knife and stop his advance. The Complainant began to focus on the SO, positioned to WO #1’s right, and walk in her direction. As the Complainant neared to within two to three metres of the SO, she fired her weapon three times in rapid succession.

The Complainant was struck with a projectile in his right leg. He dropped the knife and fell to the ground. He remained active on the ground and was subjected to a number of CEW discharges, two of which may have been deployed by the SO.

In the meantime, WO #1 was alerted to the presence of CW #9 in the shed. Together with two other officers, WO #1 entered the shed and discovered CW #9 on the ground covered in blood and seriously injured.

Ambulances arrived at the scene and took the injured parties to hospital.

Section 25(1), Criminal Code -- Protection of persons acting under authority

(a) as a private person,

(b) as a peace officer or public officer,

(c) in aid of a peace officer or public officer, or

(d) by virtue of his office,

The Complainant was shot and wounded by a PRP officer in the morning of May 2, 2020. The officer in question – the SO – was identified as the subject officer for purposes of the SIU investigation. She and other officers, having responded to an address in Mississauga following reports of a homicide in the area, confronted the Complainant in the backyard of a semi-detached home just before the shooting. On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the SO committed a criminal offence in connection with the shooting.

Pursuant to section 25(1) of the Criminal Code, police officers are immune from criminal liability for force used in the course of their duties provided such force was reasonably necessary in the execution of an act that they were required or authorized to do by law. In the event of lethal force, section 25(3) further provides that such force is not justified unless the police officer believes on reasonable grounds that it is necessary to preserve herself or another person under her charge from death or grievous bodily harm. I have no grounds to reasonably conclude that the SO fell afoul of these strictures in the force she used against the Complainant.

The SO was acting in the discharge of her lawful duties when she made her way into the backyard of the address at Holden Crescent and confronted the Complainant. The radio communications and witness information at the scene would have given her grounds to believe that the male who had fled from the scene of a nearby motor vehicle accident had assaulted a number of residents in the area and was hiding in the shed. That male – the Complainant – was clearly subject to arrest.

I am further satisfied that the force used by the SO – the three gunshots followed possibly by two CEW discharges – fell within the limits of legal justification. The Complainant walked in the SO’s direction when he emerged from the shed holding a knife covered in blood. A CEW discharge by the officer’s colleague, WO #1, had failed to deter him, as had repeated verbal commands that he drop his weapon and stop his advance. There can be no doubt that the Complainant was intent on doing harm to the officers with the knife. When he was not using it to cut himself, the Complainant pointed it at the SO while yelling that the SO would have to shoot him. Retreat was not an option. The Complainant had just attacked and seriously wounded three residents of the homes he had broken into, and represented a real and present danger to WO #1 and others in the vicinity. On this record, I am satisfied that the SO acted to thwart an imminent threat to life and limb when she fired her gun three times at the Complainant as he neared to within two to three metres of her location.

Following the shooting, the Complainant appears to have been subjected to a couple of CEW discharges by the SO followed by a series of additional CEW deployments by WO #4, the latter arriving in the backyard just prior to the shooting. [4] The evidence indicates that the Complainant remained active while he was on the ground attempting to get back on his feet. In fact, he appears to have regained his footing briefly before WO #4 first discharged his CEW. At the time the SO fired her CEW, the Complainant was not yet handcuffed. Though he had been dispossessed of the knife he had been holding, the officers could not be sure he was not further armed. Indeed, following his arrest, a smaller paring knife was located on the lawn in the vicinity of where the Complainant had fallen. In the circumstances, it would be unreasonable to characterize the SO’s CEW discharges as excessive. Until she could be assured that the Complainant no longer represented a threat, the SO was within her rights, in my view, to keep him immobilized at a distance with the use of her CEW.

The number of times WO #4’s CEW was discharged around the time of the incident – a total of 14 times over a period upwards of eight minutes – seems excessive at first blush. However, that evidence, derived from the data downloaded from his weapon, is in marked conflict with the statements of WO #4 and other officers arriving to assist in the Complainant’s arrest. That is, while the witness accounts establish that WO #4 discharged his CEW multiple times at the Complainant, he reportedly did so only until the Complainant was handcuffed – a period not more than about four minutes from the moment of the shooting. Throughout this shorter period, the evidence indicates that the Complainant was on the ground and active throughout. He kicked his legs, flailed his arms, kept trying to get up, and attempted to bite the officers. Even after the Complainant had been handcuffed, paramedics arriving at the scene felt it necessary to sedate him before they could deal with his injuries and transport him to hospital. Given the real possibility that a portion of the 14 discharges recorded by WO #4’s weapon were unintentional and/or inadvertent deployments which did not strike the Complainant, and the evidence of the Complainant’s movement on the ground for a period even after he had been shot, the evidence in my view falls short of reasonably establishing that the force used by WO #4 transgressed the limits prescribed by the criminal law.

The Complainant was not of sound mind at the time of these harrowing events; he appears to have been suffering from a psychotic episode. Be that as it may, I am satisfied that the SO acted reasonably to contend with the circumstances as they unfolded given the exigencies of the situation. In the final analysis, as there are no reasonable grounds to believe that she and the other officers involved in the Complainant’s apprehension acted other than lawfully, there is no basis for pursuing criminal charges in this case. The file is closed.


Date: February 16, 2021


Electronically approved by

Joseph Martino
Director
Special Investigations Unit