Director's Report Details

The Special Investigations Unit is a civilian law enforcement agency that investigates incidents involving an official where there has been death, serious injury, the discharge of a firearm at a person or an allegation of sexual assault. Under the Special Investigations Unit Act, 2019 (SIU Act), officials are defined as police officers, special constables of the Niagara Parks Commission and peace officers under the Legislative Assembly Act. The SIU’s jurisdiction covers more than 50 municipal, regional and provincial police services across Ontario.

Under the SIU Act, the Director of the SIU must determine based on the evidence gathered in an investigation whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that a criminal offence was committed. If such grounds exist, the Director has the authority to lay a criminal charge against the official. Alternatively, in cases where no reasonable grounds exist, the Director cannot lay charges. Where no charges are laid, a report of the investigation is prepared and released publicly, except in the case of reports dealing with allegations of sexual assault, in which case the SIU Director may consult with the affected person and exercise a discretion to not publicly release the report having regard to the affected person’s privacy interests.

Special Investigations Unit Act, 2019

Pursuant to section 34, certain information may not be included in this report. This information may include, but is not limited to, the following: 

Pursuant to section 15 of the SIU Act, the SIU may investigate the conduct of officials, be they police officers, special constables of the Niagara Parks Commission or peace officers under the Legislative Assembly Act, that may have resulted in death, serious injury, sexual assault or the discharge of a firearm at a person.

A person sustains a “serious injury” for purposes of the SIU’s jurisdiction if they: sustain an injury as a result of which they are admitted to hospital; suffer a fracture to the skull, or to a limb, rib or vertebra; suffer burns to a significant proportion of their body; lose any portion of their body; or, as a result of an injury, experience a loss of vision or hearing.

In addition, a “serious injury” means any other injury sustained by a person that is likely to interfere with the person’s health or comfort and is not transient or trifling in nature.

This report relates to the SIU’s investigation into the serious injuries a 63-year-old man (the “Complainant”) suffered.

Notification of the SIU

On February 5, 2022, at 12:07 p.m., the Peel Regional Police (PRP) contacted the SIU about an injury to the Complainant.

According to PRP, on February 5, 2022, at approximately 5:22 a.m., a PRP police cruiser operated by the Subject Official (SO) was involved in a motor vehicle collision (MVC) with the Complainant’s vehicle at the intersection of Torbram Road and Williams Parkway in Brampton. The police cruiser and the Complainant’s vehicle rolled over and both drivers were transported by ambulance to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (SHSC). The injuries sustained by the Complainant had not been disclosed to the PRP, but he was admitted to hospital. The SO’s injuries were reported as serious. The scene was being held.

The Team

Date and time team dispatched: 02/05/2022 at 1:07 p.m.

Date and time SIU arrived on scene: 02/05/2022 at 1:15 p.m.

Number of SIU Investigators assigned: 4

The Scene

Figure 1 – Google Map aerial view of intersection (with additions)

The intersection of Torbram Road and Williams Parkway was controlled with overhead traffic signals that functioned as designed. Torbram Road ran notionally in a north-south direction. Proceeding north on Torbram Road towards the intersection, there were two marked lanes with a marked left turn lane and a marked right turn lane. There was a raised island separating the northbound and the southbound lanes. There was a raised island bordering the right turn lane. Proceeding south on Torbram Road towards the intersection, there were two marked lanes with a marked left turn lane and a raised island separating the southbound and northbound lanes. The posted speed limit was 60 km/h.

There were commercial businesses on the east sides of the roadway with a Petro Canada gas station in the southeast corner and TAJ Plaza in the northeast corner of the intersection. There were residences on the west side of the roadway; however, there were no private driveways that led from Torbram Road. There were overhead streetlights illuminating the intersection and west side of the roadway.

Williams Parkway ran notionally in an east-west direction. There were two marked eastbound lanes with marked left and right turn lanes. There was a raised centre median separating the eastbound and westbound lanes. There were two marked westbound lanes with a marked left and a marked right turn lane. There were raised centre medians separating the eastbound and westbound lanes. The posted speed limit was 60 km/h.

A gouge, assessed as perhaps the location of the initial point of impact, was located in the approximate centre of the two northbound lanes and the left turn lane of westbound Williams Parkway. The gouge continued in a northeast direction to the involved vehicles

There were two vehicles within the scene as follows.


Figure 2 – The PRP Dodge Charger

Vehicle #1 was a 4-door Dodge Charger – white and blue in colour. This vehicle was a marked police cruiser displaying graphics as designed by the PRP. The police cruiser was orientated in a southeast direction in the northeast corner of Torbram Road and Williams Parkway. The police cruiser had extensive front-end damage. There was secondary collision damage to the front left driver’s door with a horizontal tear in the door. The vehicle had no battery power, and the emergency equipment and lighting could not be tested. The driver’s front air and side bags had deployed. Tire marks were visible that commenced in the approximate middle of the two northbound and two westbound lanes, and continued in a northeast direction to the Dodge Charger police cruiser.


Figure 3 – The Honda Accord

Vehicle #2 was a black 4-door Honda Accord. The vehicle was situated on its roof and orientated in a northwest direction on the right northbound lane of Torbram Road and north of Williams Parkway. The vehicle had extensive front end collision damage. There was an apparent secondary impact with the right rear corner. The vehicle had been braced by the Fire Service. Both left doors had been removed to facilitate removal of the occupant.

Expert Evidence

PRP Reconstruction Report

The following is a summary of the information contained in the report.

The incident involved a collision between a Dodge Charger police vehicle and a Honda Accord. The Dodge Charger police vehicle was travelling northbound on Torbram Road at the intersection with Williams Parkway in the City of Brampton, facing a green traffic signal and proceeding straight through. The Honda Accord was travelling southbound on Torbram Road at the intersection of Williams Parkway, with the intention of executing a left turn onto eastbound Williams Parkway on a green traffic signal.

The Honda Accord approached the intersection and attempted to execute a left turn onto eastbound Williams Parkway. The Dodge Charger police vehicle would have been clearly visible to the Complainant. Even with the lighting conditions being dark, the roadways were illuminated by artificial lighting and the Dodge Charger police vehicle headlights were on.

The Dodge Charger police vehicle was travelling steadily in the range of 122-123 km/h for the duration of the time between 5 and 1.2 seconds prior to impact. The service brake was first applied 1.2 seconds prior to impact. At 0.1 seconds prior to the collision, the Dodge Charger police vehicle was travelling at 103 km/h.
The posted speed limit on Torbram Road was 60 km/h. The Complainant would not have anticipated the approaching police vehicle to be travelling double the speed limit without emergency equipment activated. Speed was therefore a factor in this collision.

Environmental factors such as lighting, weather and road conditions were not factors in this collision.

The SO was driving a police vehicle at approximately 122 km/h in a 60 km/h speed zone with no emergency lights activated. The Complainant encroached in the pathway of the police vehicle while making a left turn. Both drivers’ actions contributed to the cause of the collision.

Video/Audio/Photographic Evidence [1]

Communications Recordings - Traffic Stop Event

On February 5, 2022, at 5:18:15 a.m., a radio broadcast indicated that Officer #1 was conducting a traffic stop at Bovaird Drive East and Sunnyvale Gate. The licence plate of the stopped vehicle was provided and the driver was queried on CPIC.

The CPIC check indicated the driver was the subject of an ongoing police investigation. A notice on the check further indicated that if the vehicle was located, the Toronto Police Service Major Crime Task Force was to be immediately contacted.

Another officer was dispatched to assist Officer #1 at 5:19:07 a.m.

At 5:31:44 a.m., the traffic stop event concluded.

The following scenario emerges from the evidence collected by the SIU, which included interviews with the Complainant and an officer who witnessed the incident, as well as video footage that captured much of the events in question. As was her legal right, the SO chose not to interview with the SIU or authorize the release of her notes.

In the morning of February 5, 2022, the Complainant was operating his Honda Accord southbound on Torbram Road intending to turn left onto Williams Parkway. He activated his signal, entered onto the left-turn lane and then the intersection, and embarked on his turn when his vehicle’s passenger side was struck by a police cruiser.

The cruiser – operated by the SO – had entered the intersection at speed on a green light. For most of the five seconds prior to impact, the officer had been travelling at about 120 km/h northward on Torbram Road. She and her colleague, the WO, in another cruiser behind her, were en route to assist an officer with a traffic stop at Bovaird Street East and Sunnyvale Gate. By the point of impact, presumably having seen the Complainant’s vehicle turning into her path, the SO had decelerated her cruiser to about 100 km/h.

The Complainant suffered a fractured sternum in the collision. The SO was fortunate to have emerged without serious injury.

Section 320.13 (1) Criminal Code – Dangerous operation causing bodily harm

Section 128(13), Highway Traffic Act – Police vehicles and speeding

(b) a police department vehicle being used in the lawful performance of a police officer’s duties.

The Complainant was seriously injured in a motor vehicle collision with a PRP cruiser on February 5, 2022. The driver of the cruiser – the SO – was identified as the subject official in the ensuing SIU investigation. The investigation is now concluded. On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the SO committed a criminal offence in connection with the collision.

The offence that arises for consideration is dangerous driving causing bodily harm contrary to section 320.13(2) of the Criminal Code. As an offence of penal negligence, a mere want of care is insufficient to give rise to liability; rather, what is required is a marked departure from the level of care that a reasonable person would have exercised in the circumstances. In the instant case, the issue is whether there was any neglect in the manner in which the SO operated the cruiser, sufficiently egregious to attract criminal sanction, that caused or contributed to the collision. In my view, there was not.

There are aspects of the SO’s conduct that are subject to legitimate scrutiny. Primary among those are her sustained speeds of twice the 60 km/h speed limit on Torbram Road without the use of her emergency lights or siren. It is difficult to understand the need for such speed. She and the WO were travelling to the area of Bovaird Street East and Sunnyvale Gate to assist another officer with a traffic stop as the vehicle that had been pulled over was of interest to the Major Crime Unit of the Toronto Police Service. The situation was not one of urgency and neither officer had been dispatched to assist; rather, that task had fallen to another officer. It is even more difficult to understand the need for such speed without the use of emergency lights and/or siren. The SO’s failure to activate her lights or siren needlessly deprived other traffic along her route, which, though minimal, was not non-existent, of the added notice that equipment would have provided of her vehicle’s speed. More to the point, it prevented the Complainant from identifying the officer’s vehicle as a police cruiser, which could well have averted the collision at the intersection. The cumulative impact of these indiscretions, in my view, render the SO’s driving dangerous. They fall short, however, of constituting a marked departure from a reasonable standard of care.

There were a number of mitigating factors at play in connection with the SO’s driving. Under section 128(13)(b) of the Highway Traffic Act, police vehicles used in the lawful performance of a police officer’s duty are exempt from speed limits. The section does not confer carte blanche on police officers to speed indiscriminately without regard for public safety. It does, however, amount to a recognition at law that speeding by a police officer is of a different character than speeding by a non-police officer. Whatever the wisdom of the SO’s decision to rush to the scene of a traffic stop, it is clear she was in the execution of her duties at the time. The fact that there was very little traffic on the road at the time of the incident – about 5:30 a.m. on a weekend – and that Torbram Road was mostly commercial/industrial with residential homes on the west side that did not let out onto the roadway are also important considerations in the reasonableness analysis. Finally, given the heavy onus on persons making left turns to yield to oncoming traffic, I am satisfied that the officer was to a greater or lesser extent reasonably entitled to expect that the Complainant would not attempt his turn until some point after she had cleared the intersection. Weighed in the balance with these extenuating considerations, I am not reasonably satisfied that the SO’s dangerous driving transgressed the limits of care prescribed by the criminal law.

For the foregoing reasons, I am satisfied that the SO comported herself lawfully in the time leading to her collision with the Complainant’s vehicle. Accordingly, there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges in this case. The file is closed.

Date: June 3, 2022

Electronically approved by

Joseph Martino
Director
Special Investigations Unit