Ontario's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has determined there's no reasonable grounds to believe OPP officers involved in the shooting death of a man in Temiskaming Shores committed a criminal offence.
The incident happened in April 2020 at a New Liskeard residence at the corner of Lakeshore Road North and Wedgewood Avenue. SIU director Joseph Martino's report was released today.
"On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that either officer committed a criminal offence in connection with the Complainant’s death," wrote Martino in the report.
The SIU is an arm's-length agency that investigates police-involved incidents where there has been a death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.
The SIU investigation involved a team of four investigations and two forensic investigators. There were four civilian witnesses, four witness officers, and two subject officers. The subject officers are police officers whose conduct appears to have caused the incident under investigation. One of the subject officers declined to be interviewed or provide notes.
April 9, 2020, around 9 p.m., three OPP officers responded to a home invasion involving a man with a gun and a possible hostage situation, according to the SIU report.
A witness unlocked the rear door to allow two officers into the home.
Officers heard shouting from the second floor, and one of the officers "yelled upstairs for everyone to come down immediately."
"The Complainant then emerged standing at the top of the stairs before a gate. He yelled obscenities at (subject officer two), kicked the gate open and began to make his way down the stairs. In his right hand was what appeared to be a handgun," reads the report.
The officer drew his gun and "ordered the Complainant to stop what he was doing. The Complainant continued to descend with his arm outstretched and the gun pointed at (subject officer two)."
As the man approached police, both officers fired a total of six shots — four from subject officer two, and two from subject officer one.
Officers performed CPR until paramedics arrived. The 42-year-old man was brought to a Temiskaming hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
One person was found by officers in a bedroom of the residence unharmed.
"The “gun” that the Complainant had brandished was located on the floor by the rear door of the residence. It was, in fact, a toy gun," reads the report.
The cause of death was determined to be “multiple gunshot wounds of torso”. The report notes the man had five gunshot wounds — three to the torso, one in suprapubic area, and one to the right arm. The director also said various drugs were detected in blood taken during the autopsy.
"While it is true that the Complainant was only ever in possession of a toy handgun, in the fraught atmosphere that prevailed at the time, in which the officers had grounds to believe that the Complainant was armed with a real firearm and had threatened to kill persons inside the home, I am unable to fault the officers for believing they were dealing with a genuine threat of gunfire, particularly as the object in the Complainant’s hand looked like a real gun," wrote the director in his analysis.
"There is also evidence that the Complainant voiced suicidal ideations in the moments preceding the officers’ arrival at the home, in which he specifically talked about provoking a shootout with the police that would cause his death. Though the officers would not have been aware of this information, it lends credibility to the officers’ fears that their lives were in jeopardy as it suggests the Complainant would have conducted himself in such a fashion as to create the appearance of an actual threat, not merely a contrived one."
The full SIU report is available here.
