News Release

News Release

SIU Concludes Toronto Death Investigation

Case Number: 12-TCD-320   

Mississauga (23 November, 2012) --- The Director of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Ian Scott, has concluded that there are no reasonable grounds to charge two Toronto Police Service officers with any criminal offence in relation to the death of a 44-year-old man earlier this month.

The SIU assigned four investigators and two forensic investigators to probe the circumstances of this incident. As part of the investigation, one witness officer and two civilian witnesses were interviewed. One subject officer participated in an SIU interview and provided the SIU with a copy of her duty notes. The other subject officer declined to be interviewed or to provide a copy of his notes, as is his legal right.

The SIU investigation found that the following events took place on Friday, November 2, 2012:
• At approximately 12:15 a.m., the subject officers were dispatched to an apartment building located at 125 Lawton Boulevard in Toronto. A man living in a unit on the seventh floor had called police stating he had taken a drug overdose. The officers received further information that the man had suicidal tendencies. 
• The officers knocked on the man’s apartment door, but there was no answer. One of the subject officers tried to open the door and discovered that it was unlocked.  They entered the apartment after moving a bicycle that was blocking the entrance.  One of the officers went out to the apartment’s balcony and looked over the railing. She saw a body lying beside a parked vehicle.
• The man was declared deceased at the scene by an attending coroner. 

A subsequent post-mortem examination determined the cause of death to be multiple blunt force traumas.

Director Scott said, “In my view, the subject officers did nothing wrong. They had the lawful authority to enter the apartment without warrant based upon exigent circumstances – they were responding to a possible suicide call where there was a prior history of suicide attempts. It is clear that the man committed suicide by jumping from a seventh floor balcony. On the basis of this investigation, there was simply no police involvement in his unfortunate death.”

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