A joint funeral service for two members of South Simcoe Police Service killed last week in the line of duty will be held on Thursday.
Constables Morgan Russell and Devon Michael Northrup died after being shot inside the basement of a home near 25th Side Road and 9th Line last Tuesday night.
The officers had attended the residence after receiving a call for a disturbance. There, they encountered a male resident armed with a semi-automatic rifle and were both shot. Russell, who was 54, and 33-year-old Northrup both later died in hospital.
The shooter, identified to CTV News by family friends and an ex-girlfriend as 22-year-old Christopher Doncaster, died following an exchange of gunfire with a third officer. Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) is investigating.
The funeral service for the two fallen officers, which will not be open to the public, is set to get underway at 11 a.m. on Oct. 20 at Barrie’s Sadlon Arena, 555 Bayview Dr.
Members of the public are welcome to observe the funeral procession as it travels from Adams Funeral Home and Cremation Services Ltd., 445 St. Vincent St., to Steckley-Gooderham Funeral Homes, 30 Worsley St., then over to the arena.
Private visitations for Russell, a 33-year veteran of the force, and Northrup, who had six years of service, will be held on Wednesday for family, friends, and colleagues.
Last Friday morning, several police cruisers from South Simcoe, the Ontario Provincial Police, and York Regional Police from the Office of the Chief Coroner in Toronto, near Highway 401 and Keele Street, escorted the officers' bodies up to the two Barrie funeral homes.
The autopsy for Doncaster also took place that day. The SIU, which investigates reports involving police, as well as special constables with the Niagara Parks Commission and peace officers with the Legislative Protective Service, where there has been death, serious injury, allegations of sexual assault, and/or where a firearm has been discharged at a person, said investigators will know more about the circumstances surrounding the alleged shooter’s death following the post-mortem examination.
