Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) on Wednesday determined a police officer acted in self-defence when she shot a man in Toronto’s Cabbagetown neighbourhood this summer.
In a newly released report, the police watchdog agency said the unnamed Toronto Police Service (TPS) officer opened fire to defend herself “from a reasonably apprehended attack.”
On the evening of July 23, the officer fired her weapon at a 32-year-old man at Carlton and Parliament streets. The man was struck twice by the gunfire.
The officer was in the area responding to a civilian report about a man who was bleeding and holding a knife, the SIU detailed.
Investigators determined the man “was of unsound mind at the time” of the incident.
“Simply put, the [man] was approaching the [officer] with a knife in hand in a fashion that could only be described as threatening,” SIU investigator Joseph Martino wrote in the report.
The SIU reviewed body-worn camera footage as part of the investigation. The video showed the officer and one other police official approach the 32-year-old man on Carlton Street. He brandished a knife at the investigated officer, who drew her firearm and instructed the man to lower his weapon, the SIU wrote.
The man approached the officers with his knife in hand as the two officers said they wanted to “help” the man, the SIU reported.
When the man denied help, the SIU said bodycam footage showed him running towards the investigated police officer, who discharged her firearm. The second officer discharged a conducted energy weapon (CEW) similar to a Taser.
The SIU said the man continued to approach the investigated officer “who discharged her firearm several more times in quick succession.”
SIU officials reported the police officer initially “fired her weapon two to four times” at the man while he was about eight to 10 metres away. As he continued to approach, the SIU said the officer “fired an additional three times, striking and felling” the man.
He fell to the road while holding the knife. The weapon was seized and he was handcuffed as officers provided first aid.
An ambulance was called to the scene and the man was transported to hospital to be treated for two bullet wounds, one in his left arm and another in the lower right abdomen. He recovered in hospital.
Martino said he is satisfied the officer’s gunfire “constituted reasonable force in the circumstances.”
The SIU investigator said the officer was facing a “lethal threat.”
Martino noted “a complete withdrawal from the scene was not a viable option given the presence of civilians in the area.”
The SIU is a civilian police oversight agency that investigates incidences where an officer is involved in the death, serious injury or alleged sexual assault of a person, or where a firearm has been discharged.
The SIU has concluded the investigation. The officer has not and will not be charged in connection to the shooting.
