Warning: This story contains graphic details.
The province’s police watchdog has cleared a York Regional Police officer of any wrongdoing after he fatally shot a 34-year-old man who was stabbing a woman inside a condo unit in Markham in July.
On Wednesday, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) released its final report into the June 11 shooting that occurred at a condominium complex on Buchanan Drive, near Warden Avenue and Highway 7, shortly after 4:30 a.m.
The SIU said its director, Joseph Martino, on his assessment of the evidence, “determined there were no reasonable grounds to believe that an officer committed a criminal offence in connection with the man’s death.”
The report detailed what transpired that morning based on interviews and evidence collected from the scene, York Regional Police and other sources. The SIU noted that the officer, who was designated as the subject official (SO), did not provide his notes and declined to be interviewed as his legal right.
According to the SIU, police were called by a resident about a disturbance at another unit.
“He had heard a male and a female arguing, screaming and crying, and the sounds of furniture toppling over in the unit,” the report stated.
When the SO and two other officers arrived at the unit, they knocked several times, identified themselves as “police,” and asked the occupants to open the door, the SIU said.
“There was no response from inside to their knocks, but the officers heard sounds that concerned them, including a female saying, ‘Ouch, ouch, ouch,’” the report stated. The three officers tried to enter but the door was locked.
A few minutes later, with the help of the condo’s security guard, who unlocked the door, the officers entered the unit and saw a naked woman, who is referred to in the report as civilian witness number one (CW #1), lying face down on a massage table, the SIU said.
The officers asked the woman if she was okay but she was unresponsive.
The SIU said a short time later, a man, designated as the Complainant, appeared from a bedroom door across the living space and approached the woman quickly.
“He was holding a knife, which he used to stab CW #1 in the back multiple times,” the report stated.
The officers ordered the man to stop, but the SIU said he continued to stab the woman.
The SO then fired his semi-automatic firearm once, striking the man in the head. The SIU said the man collapsed and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Meanwhile, the woman was taken to the hospital.
“The evidence indicates that the SO fired his weapon to protect CW #1 from a reasonably apprehended attack. Though the SO did not choose to provide that evidence firsthand to the SIU, as was his right, the facts speak for themselves in this case,” SIU Director Martino wrote in the report.
“Confronted with the Complainant actively stabbing CW #1 in the back, it is natural to infer that the officer shot the Complainant to prevent grievous bodily harm or death coming to CW #1.”
Martino added that the shot fired by the SO constituted reasonable force, saying that engaging the complainant in a physical fight with the Complainant armed with a knife would have placed the officer’s life in danger and “was off the table.”
The SIU director noted that deploying a Taser “would have risked something less than the full and immediate incapacitation of the Complainant if the weapon’s probes missed their mark or did not result in neuromuscular failure for whatever reason.”
“The stopping power of a firearm represented the officer’s best chance of ending the Complainant’s assault on CW #1. In fact, the use of the weapon did instantly neutralize the Complainant and prevent further grievous harm and, possibly, death, coming to CW #1,” Martino concluded.
