No Charges Pressed Against Police Officer Who Shot Man in Mississauga
Published November 22, 2016 at 9:44 pm
After an investigation from the Special Investigations Unit, Joseph Martino — Acting Director of the SIU — has determined that there are no reasonable grounds to lay charges against a Peel Regional Police officer who shot a man in Mississauga last year.
The incident in question happened on November 14, 2015, at approximately 1 a.m. A 26-year-old man phoned 911, saying he was wearing a suicide belt (a belt rigged with explosives) that he planned to detonate. The reasoning he gave was “because of his people being killed in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Police traced the man’s location and dispatched two officers, who found him on the grounds of Burnhamthorpe Public School. According to the SIU report, the man had fastened the electrical cord of a hair clipper around his waist with the clipper end in his right pocket, and the clipper pouch hanging from the cord at the front of his waist near his abdomen — a makeshift imitation explosive.
The man then began to walk towards the officers, reportedly shouting that he was going to blow them up and kill them. Both officers took cover and withdrew their firearms, with one officer eventually firing five shots at the man, resulting in wounds to the man’s abdomen, left thigh and scrotum.
Once the area was investigated to confirm there were no actual explosives on scene, the man was taken to the hospital, where he was treated and released the next day.
Following the SIU’s investigation, Martino concluded that the officer was acting in justified self-defence, saying: “In the final analysis, I am satisfied that the shots the subject officer fired at the man as he neared to within metres of the officer’s position, threatening to kill the officer and detonate a bomb as he did so, amounted to reasonable force in self-defence by an officer engaged in the lawful execution of his duty. Consequently, this file is closed as there are no reasonable grounds in my view to believe the subject officer committed a criminal offence.”
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