SIU called in after woman shot by officer
‘Interaction’ over a knife led to a fatal encounter in downtown Hamilton Saturday morning
An experienced police officer working an extra shift shot and killed a 30-year-old woman during a downtown knife call early Saturday morning.
The woman had a weapon when she was shot, confirmed Clint Twolan, president of the Hamilton Police Association.
The province’s Special Investigations Unit invoked its mandate after the deadly encounter and was at the scene at 320 King. St. E., just west of Wellington Street and above a vape shop, until Saturday evening.
At about 1 a.m. Saturday, police received a 911 call about a woman with a knife.
Officers who entered the apartment
became involved in “an interaction” with the woman, according to the SIU, and one officer — who is one of two witness officers in the investigation — used a Taser. It is unclear if the Taser actually connected with the woman.
A second officer — the subject officer in the SIU investigation — shot the woman. She was pronounced dead at hospital at 2:04 a.m.
No police officers were injured during the confrontation, according to Twolan.
He says the officer with the Taser is a “fairly new” officer. The one who fired the gun is more experienced.
Both patrol officers were working extra shifts out of Central station because the platoon there was short-staffed — a common and recurring problem the association has flagged recently for the public.
Twolan said he has full confidence the officers used the necessary level of force required in the situation and “obviously they feel bad that this happened at all.”
Six SIU investigators and three forensics investigators have been assigned to this case.
The word “DIE” is graffitied on the sidewalk in front of the goldcoloured 1891 heritage building where the shooting happened.
An autopsy was scheduled for Sunday morning. As SIU investigators worked the scene Saturday, Robert Chinnery walked up to a group of journalists gathered nearby and said police had also killed his son.
Andreas Chinnery was fatally shot by Hamilton police in 2011 in his own apartment on Barton Street East.
The officer who fired told an inquest that Andreas had charged at him with a baseball bat and refused to drop it. The officer was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Robert Chinnery has been very vocal since then in his criticism of Hamilton police and what he believes was the unnecessary shooting of his son, who was just 19.
The SIU still hasn’t completed its investigation into the last fatal shooting by Hamilton police in April.
Quinn MacDougall, also 19, was killed outside his central Mountain townhouse complex.
The teen had called police several times that day, believing his life was in danger based on a social media threat.
The SIU has said officers responded to a call of a threat in progress involving a weapon. However, it has never been made public if any kind of weapon was actually found.
Last year the SIU made changes to its procedures based on a long-awaited review of its work.
It is now mandatory for the unit to release its full reports on officer-involved deaths.
Before that, the SIU would only tell the public if subject officers were being cleared or charged, with few other details.
The review also recommended the SIU adopt timelines for its investigations: 120 days, and should the probe need to go longer, the family would get an update then and every 60 days thereafter. The MacDougall case has exceeded the 120 days.
Twolan said slow-moving SIU investigations are stressful for subject officers who want the situation resolved quickly so they can properly focus on work.
The SIU’s website says the MacDougall investigation is ongoing and the file is under the director’s review.
Anyone with information about Saturday’s shooting can contact the SIU at 1-800-787-8529. Anyone with video of the incident is asked to upload it to the SIU website.
The Hamilton Police Service cannot comment on the shooting now that the SIU is involved. The SIU investigates all serious injuries, deaths and allegations of sexual assault related to police.