Waterloo Region police sergeant charged with attempted murder in shooting
Incident started with a break-in investigation in Flamborough and ended with shots fired in Cambridge
WATERLOO REGION — A Waterloo Regional Police sergeant has been charged with attempted murder by the Special Investigations Unit after a man was shot in Cambridge in March.
It’s rare for the police watchdog to criminally charge an officer in an
on-duty shooting — and this is the first time in its 28-year history it has laid a charge of attempted murder, SIU spokesperson Monica Hudon said Wednesday.
Sgt. Richard Dorling, 44, a former homicide detective, is also charged with aggravated assault, discharging a firearm with intent and discharging a firearm-reckless endangerment, the SIU said in a news release.
On March 31, Hamilton police were investigating a break-in at a Flamborough property. A minivan was stolen.
Hamilton police tracked it to Cambridge and notified Waterloo Regional Police, who responded.
“One of the officers located the man and there was an interaction,” the SIU said.
“The officer discharged his firearm at the man several times. The man was struck one time and transported to hospital for treatment.”
The shooting happened in the late afternoon beside Highway 401 near Dickie Settlement Road in Cambridge. The 30-year-old man who was shot was airlifted to hospital. He was not identified by the SIU.
SIU director Tony Loparco “has reasonable grounds to believe” Dorling committed criminal offences in the shooting, the SIU said.
The man who was shot “sustained injuries sufficient for the SIU to invoke their mandate,” Waterloo Regional Police said in a news release.
Dorling was arrested Tuesday by members of the SIU, who then released him. The SIU ordered him to not communicate with the man who was shot and to not possess a firearm.
Dorling has not appeared in court. He is suspended with pay.
The Record previously pieced together crime drama of the shooting using statements by police and the SIU, and by drawing on recorded police communications.
“Show me your hands!” an officer shouts. “Don’t move! Put your hands in the air now!”
Seconds later, an officer shoots a suspect after chasing him through the brush beside Highway 401.
“Shots fired! He’s down! Show me your f---ing hands! Now!” an officer shouts.
The officer continues: “Shots fired. Male’s down . ... Get me an ambulance, please. He’s been shot in the leg.”
Before the shooting, the minivan went off the road into a field. A man ran from the minivan into the bush, carrying a bag.
Police checked the empty van and found two rifles inside. They also found open ammunition boxes with one round missing.
Officers who ran after the suspect caught up to him four minutes later. They confronted him and he was shot.
Police learned the man’s name from a bank card found on his person. A Hamilton man by the same name and age was arrested twice by Niagara police in 2015, charged with fleeing police, theft, mischief, break-andenter, possession of stolen property and drug offences.
Although this is the first attempted murder charge laid by the SIU for an on-duty shooting, Toronto police Const. James Forcillo was convicted of attempted murder in the 2013 death of Sammy Yatim. The 18-year-old’s death on a Toronto streetcar sparked heated protests about police use of force.
In the weeks after Yatim’s death, the SIU charged Forcillo with seconddegree murder. Then, before the start of the trial, prosecutors — not the SIU — laid a second charge of attempted murder in the death. The charge was tied to a second volley of shots Forcillo fired, as Yatim lay on the ground, already fatally struck by the first round.
The attempted murder charge was the only one that stuck, after a jury acquitted Forcillo of second-degree murder for the first three shots.
Dorling, meanwhile, was a rising star with the Waterloo Regional Police’s homicide branch for years, leading the effort to form a new unit dedicated to solving long-term missing person cases.
In 2008, he reopened a handful of suspicious cases, work that led him to bring more than 20 cold cases of missing persons under the authority of the homicide branch. Dorling began reinvestigating old leads and started a public awareness campaign, hoping the publicity could bring some answers to the unsolved cases.
He was later taken off the cold-case unit and put on active patrol duty.
He was quoted in the Record last year on a lower-profile case — rescuing ducklings on the Conestoga Parkway.
“I grabbed two of them and put them in the pocket of my cargo pants as I ran after another one that didn’t want to get caught,” he said. “I was on a foot pursuit to catch a duckling.”
Dorling is set to appear in Kitchener court on Dec. 19.
Waterloo police said its professional standards branch will review the circumstances of the shooting “following the completion of the court proceedings.”
“Show me your hands!” an officer shouts. “Don’t move! Put your hands in the air now!” Seconds later, an officer shoots a suspect after chasing him through the brush beside Highway 401. “Shots fired! He’s down! Show me your f---ing hands! Now!” an officer shouts.