News Release

News Release

SIU Concludes Toronto Falling Death Investigation

Case Number: 12-TCD-162   

Mississauga (27 June, 2012) --- The Director of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Ian Scott, has concluded that there are no reasonable grounds to charge an officer with the Toronto Police Service (TPS) with any criminal offence in relation to the death of a 31-year-old man earlier this month.

The SIU assigned three investigators and two forensic investigators to probe the circumstances of this incident.  The subject officer submitted to an interview with the SIU and provided a copy of his duty notes.  In addition, one witness officer and four civilian witnesses were interviewed.

The SIU investigation found that the following events took place on Monday, June 4: 
• At approximately 2:00 p.m., a woman spotted someone taking something from her vehicle parked on Bellamy Road.
• When the woman’s husband went out to investigate the matter, he saw a male and a female walking away from the vehicle.  A short time later the male entered a high rise apartment building at 140 Adanac Drive.  The husband followed behind, while on the phone with a TPS operator.
• As a result, the subject officer and another officer were dispatched to the building. They were informed that the man was working his way up the stairwell.  The subject officer walked up the stairwell on the southeast side of the building and opened the door to the hallway on the building’s fifteenth floor.  He heard some shouting and the sound of glass breaking.  He approached the stairwell at the northwest side of the building, opened its door, and saw a man crouched in front of a broken window. The man immediately jumped headfirst out of the window. 
• The man died of multiple traumas as a result of the descent from the fifteenth floor through the limbs of a tree and then contact with the ground.

Director Scott said, “In my view, the subject officer is in no way responsible for the unfortunate demise of the man.  The man chose to commit this suicidal act of leaping from the fifteenth storey of an apartment building for the seemingly inexplicable reason of escaping apprehension for the theft of some items from a car.  On this basis, he was the author of his own misfortune.”   

The SIU is an independent government agency that investigates the conduct of officials (police officers as well as special constables with the Niagara Parks Commission and peace officers with the Legislative Protective Service) that may have resulted in death, serious injury, sexual assault and/or the discharge of a firearm at a person. All investigations are conducted by SIU investigators who are civilians. Under the Special Investigations Unit Act, the Director of the SIU must

• consider whether the official has committed a criminal offence in connection with the incident under investigation
• depending on the evidence, cause a criminal charge to be laid against the official where grounds exist for doing so, or close the file without any charges being laid
• publicly report the results of its investigations