News Release
SIU Determines No Charges Warranted in Incident where Peel Officers Tried to Prevent Man from Falling to His Death
Case Number: 15-OCD-108
Other News Releases Related to Case 15-OCD-108
The Director of the Special Investigations Unit has determined there are no grounds to believe police officers committed a criminal offence when a 26-year-old man fell to his death from the roof of an apartment building.
SIU Director Tony Loparco found that “the officers did what they could in the few seconds they had available to them to dissuade the man.”
The SIU had assigned five investigators and two forensic investigators to probe the circumstances of this incident. One subject officer was interviewed but did not provide a copy of his duty notes, as is his legal right. Another subject officer declined to be interviewed or provide his duty notes, as is his legal right.
The investigation found the following:
- Around 7:15 a.m. on June 2, 2015, Peel Regional Police officers responded to a distress call at an apartment building located at 208 Enfield Drive in Mississauga.
- Officers entered the building, having received information that a 26-year-old man was on the roof.
- As the officers and a security guard exited the elevator into an enclosed rooftop party room, they saw the man on the outside ledge of a glass partition around the building’s edge.
- The officers motioned and exhorted the man to return to the lounge.
- The man stepped from the ledge as the security guard was opening the door to the outside portion of the roof.
- The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
Director Loparco said, “There is no question that the man’s final act was intentional. There is also no question of the officers being in any way responsible for the death in what they did or failed to do. The security guard, present at the time on the rooftop, and a pedestrian at ground level who witnessed the incident, each indicate that the man was alone on the railing when he stepped from the building. For these reasons, there are no grounds for proceeding with charges in this case.”
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