Family of man who fell to his death hires lawyer
Relatives question why `dynamic entry' was used on night man fell to his death
The family of Anthony Aust, a 23-year-old man who fell to his death after a police raid at his Jasmine Crescent apartment in October, has hired an Ottawa lawyer to represent them in their quest for answers.
The family's lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, said he's fact-gathering while the Special Investigations Unit, the province's civilian police watchdog, continues its probe into what happened the morning of Wednesday, Oct. 7.
Greenspon said an SIU investigation is likely to take months.
“There's so many questions that the family has,” he said. “You have a violent, sudden death of a loved one and there's all kinds of questions that need to be asked and answered. Hopefully some of those questions will be answered with the investigation by the SIU, but I'm not overly confident that's going to be the case.”
Ottawa police tactical officers were executing a drug-unit warrant at the 12th-floor apartment and used what's called a “dynamic entry,” breaking down the door and tossing a flash grenade into the front entryway, which gave off smoke and made a loud noise. At least eight officers armed with rifles then filed into the apartment to search it. Aust jumped from his bedroom window shortly after and fell to his death.
Dynamic entries have been the subject of judicial scrutiny with an Ottawa judge lambasting Ottawa police for their overuse of the tactic in February, saying it was a “casual disregard” of people's charter rights.
According to Aust's brother, Raymond Aust, it was the stress caused by that kind of entry that led his brother to jump. His family has questioned why that kind of police response was necessary for a man who was on bail and whose movements were monitored by police and the courts. Black community groups in the city have also questioned why the response was necessary. Those groups have also said Aust's mother was told by police they were looking for a gun and cocaine in the search.
At the time of his death, Aust was on bail awaiting trial for firearm and drug charges laid in January after a traffic stop in the city's west end. Part of that bail plan saw him wear an ankle bracelet and have surveillance cameras installed in his home at 2020 Jasmine Cres.
It was that camera that captured dramatic footage of police officers raiding the apartment. The criminal charges against Aust — drug possession for the purpose of trafficking, firearm possession and breaching conditions — were formally withdrawn after his death.
According to police, who justified the use of dynamic entry to the police board in April after the judge's ruling, the practice is used when police fear for public and officer safety or that evidence will be destroyed. After Aust's death, police Chief Peter Sloly said he will review the use of the entry either annually or on an incident-by-incident basis. The standard use of the tactic was born from the death of a man during a botched raid in 1991.
Vincent Gardner, a 49-year-old Black musician, was practising in a house at 22 Gould St. when he was shot in the abdomen during a raid by the Ottawa-Carleton Regional drug unit. The police officer mistook his headless bass guitar for a shotgun. Gardner died in hospital 51 days later.
Following that raid, which was carried out by drug officers, Ottawa police made the decision to have all drug raids instead carried out by tactical officers because they were better trained in “dynamic-entry” techniques and had better equipment than the average officer, such as guns with high-powered lights mounted on them, according to the 1996 inquest into Gardner's death. It was, at the time, thought to be the safer approach.
Lawyer Greenspon said “at this stage, we're looking into it, we're investigating it, we're collecting whatever evidence we can as to the use or overuse of dynamic entry in these particular circumstances where Anthony is wearing an electronic bracelet and there's a video cam on the front door, using that kind of a dynamic entry seems to me just on its face to have been excessive in the extreme. That would be the line that we would be pursuing once our investigation into it is complete.
“It was an unnecessary use of force in circumstances where (police) knew or ought to have known there was no need for that force and also recognizing that the unnecessary use of that force could lead to very serious, and in this case, life or death consequences,” Greenspon said.