It’s ‘difficult to move on when justice system moves so slow’
Hagersville family waiting through lengthy court process
It was a huge relief for Andrew Harnett’s loved ones to hear that the driver who was found guilty of manslaughter in the sergeant’s hit-and-run death would be sentenced as an adult.
“Really for us, it meant the difference between this individual serving some time or essentially walking free,” said Jason Harnett of his brother’s line-of-duty death. He added that a different decision “would have been just a real slap in the face — not only to our family, but to the entire law enforcement community, and those who serve on the front line.”
The Harnett family is from Hagersville. Andrew, who was working for the Calgary Police Service at the time of his death, was born and raised in Haldimand before serving as a military police officer with the Canadian Forces Military Police and then joining the police service in Alberta.
Shortly before midnight on Dec. 31, 2020, Andrew pulled over an SUV driver for a traffic stop, but was hit and dragged when the driver took off. He died about an hour later as a result of his injuries. The driver, who was 17 at the time, was charged with first-degree murder. He was found guilty of manslaughter in November 2022.
While the question of how the sentencing will proceed has been decided and there’s another court date set for May 31, that won’t be the end of it, Jason explained. At the end of the month, the Crown and defence attorneys will present their cases for how long the sentence should be, and then the judge will make her decision — a process the family was informed could take until midsummer.
“It’s not a fast process; that’s been a lot of the frustration on our end,” Jason said.
The amount of court time the Harnett family had to endure was truncated when a passenger in the vehicle, Amir Abdulrahman, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter in December 2021 — he had been charged with first-degree murder, as was reported by The Canadian Press. In January 2022, he was sentenced to five years.
“One of the really difficult parts about that end of the trial is, he was given time for being held,” Jason said, adding that the family was recently informed that through that, along with good behaviour, “which is very difficult to deal with and grasp on to,” Abdulrahman will likely be free within weeks to the next few months.
“Our family has spent more time in court than the passenger spent in prison,” Jason said.
“It is very difficult to move on when the justice system moves so slow, and in our opinion, is very lenient on criminals who are committing very serious, if not the most serious, offences there are.”