Officer had no time to get up before fatally hit: expert

Struck and then run over in Toronto parkade

A crash reconstructionist told jurors in a first-degree murder trial that it was highly unlikely a Toronto police officer who was knocked to the ground in an underground parking garage would have been able to get up before he was run over by a car.

Under cross-examination by the prosecution, Barry Raftery told the court it would be unfair to expect anyone to be able to get up in the roughly three seconds that elapsed between those two occurrences.

That testimony comes as the Crown suggests Det. Const. Jeffrey Northrup may not have fallen to the ground.

Raftery, who has been called as an expert witness by the defence, is testifying at the trial of Umar Zameer.

Zameer has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Northrup, who died after he was struck by a vehicle in an underground parking garage at Toronto City Hall shortly after midnight on July 2, 2021.

Northrup and his partner were in the garage to investigate a stabbing.

Zameer, who was with his pregnant wife and their young son at the time, was not involved in the stabbing.

Raftery testified Monday that the physical evidence from the scene and Zameer’s car indicates Northrup was knocked off balance by a “glancing” contact while the car was reversing, and was already on the ground when he was run over by it travelling forward.

He pointed to a disturbance in the dust on the front fender as evidence of that glancing contact, and said the absence of damage to the front fender and hood show Northrup wasn’t run over while standing. Court has heard Northrup was more than six feet tall and weighed close to 300 pounds.

A crash reconstruction expert called by the Crown previously testified he concluded Northrup had been knocked to the ground by the car while it was reversing and was run over when he was already on the ground.

On Tuesday, the prosecution questioned Raftery on the mark in the dust on the fender, suggesting it could have been made by at least two other people — including Zameer — and there was no way to know when it was formed.

Raftery agreed but said the “most reasonable inference” is that it was the result of Northrup being sideswiped by Zameer’s car.

Crown prosecutor Michael Cantlon suggested Northrup may not have fallen after the contact and may instead have regained his footing, but Raftery rejected that suggestion. “We know he ended up on the ground,” because an object believed to be Northrup’s body can be seen on the ground in front of the car on security video, he said. At no other point can Northrup be seen on the video, he noted.

Zameer’s wife, Aaida Shaikh, testified they did not know the people who approached them were plainclothes officers and instead thought they were being attacked.