PLEASE, NO MORE SECRETS
Only the attorney general is allowed to receive a copy of the report from each investigation conducted by Ontario’s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit. Not the police. Not the families of the victim. And not the public. But one thing is clea
Katherine Yu
What happened: Yu’s brother, 35-yearold Edmond, was shot by Toronto police on a TTC bus on Feb. 20, 1997. A former medical student, Edmond had suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, but had stopped taking his medication. Before climbing on the bus, he hit a woman. Police were called and when they arrived, Edmond brandished a hammer, prompting an officer to shoot him.
The SIU cleared Toronto police Const. Louis Pasquino, the officer who shot Yu, saying he was justified in using lethal force. But Pasquino did not speak to the SIU, prompting public outrage that the crucial link had not been questioned by investigators.
“Why is it that the officer can get away with not co-operating with the (SIU) in its investigation into the killing?” asked one member of the Coalition Against Racist Police Violence, at a 1997 press conference denouncing the decision. What she found out about the death: When the SIU provided her family with the results of the investigation, Yu felt there were still many questions about her brother’s death unanswered. She wanted “a better picture” of how Edmond died, “at least give me closure. I didn’t feel that after the investigation.” Her family was not provided with the director’s written report. She recalls that because she was eager to get information in writing — she would take notes in meetings with investigators because “I didn’t understand exactly what was going on. It’s hard. ... I was totally new to the system.” The coroner’s inquest into Yu’s death provided a much better picture of her brother’s death. She appreciated hearing the perspective of witnesses who she had never heard from. Should the SIU director’s reports be made public? “It really would be helpful,” she said. “The most important thing to understand is what went wrong.”
Karyn Greenwood-Graham
What happened: Greenwood-Graham’s son, 26-year-old Trevor Graham, was shot dead by a Waterloo Regional Police officer after an attempted drugstore robbery in November 2007.
Graham, who was holding a knife and refused police orders to drop it, had serious mental-health problems that landed him in the criminal justice system.
The officer fired when Trevor moved toward the officers with the knife. The SIU later cleared the officer. What she found out about the death: Greenwood-Graham said when she was told no charges would be laid in her son’s death, she asked for a copy of the SIU director’s report.
Greenwood-Graham said she was told she could not have it.
“And I said, ’Well how do I know what happened?’ ”
Only later, 14 months after her son’s death, would Graham learn that there was surveillance video that captured the shooting. When she ultimately viewed the video at the coroner’s inquest, it provided information that helped her understand how and why her son died. “What I saw — that kid walked towards the gun with his chest put out, like, go ahead and just end it,” she said “I said at the inquest that that was suicide.” She wishes the SIU could have provided access to the video from the beginning — “Whatever they had, they should have shared with me.” “Why couldn’t they have shown it to me a year (before), so I would have known? A mother needs to know, families need to know,” she said. Should the SIU director’s reports be made public? “Absolutely. Abso-friggin-lutely. And why aren’t they — why haven’t they been?”
Heather Thompson
What happened: Ian Pryce, Thompson’s son, died in 2013 after he was shot by two Toronto police officers, following an hour-long standoff. Police believed Pryce, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was about to shoot a weapon they believed was a handgun. It was later revealed to be a pellet gun that appears almost identical to a handgun. The two officers were cleared by the SIU.
What she knows about the death: The SIU took over a year to complete the investigation into Pryce’s death. On the anniversary of her son’s death, Thompson wrote a letter to the SIU director, pleading for more information and a meeting with the inspector in charge of the probe. Thompson said she did not receive a response.
When she was told no charges would be laid, she says she was given a “vague” description of the incident, with the same information that was provided in a brief press release. “I didn’t understand how Ian was killed, and why we weren’t given information in due time.”
She was also upset that her son was not named in the SIU’s press release. In the days after Pryce’s death, Thompson told the watchdog she did not want him named, but with the passage of time, she wanted his death to be acknowledged publicly. “I would have wanted him named.”
In the past few weeks, Thompson has learned in far greater detail what happened to her son. The coroner’s inquest into Pryce’s death concluded Thursday. It was a “horrific” experience — particularly hearing audio that captured her son’s last moments — but “now I know what happened.
“And knowing is a way of helping me to step forward.” Should the SIU director’s report be made public? “Absolutely. It should be released immediately . . . so that families can deal with it.”
Diane Pinder What happened: Pinder’s brother, Douglas Minty, a 59-year-old developmentally delayed man, was shot dead by an OPP officer in Elmvale in 2009 after Minty reportedly assaulted a door-to-door salesman and was advancing on the officer with what appeared to be an edged weapon.
The SIU declined to charge the officer, Const. Jeff Seguin.
What she found out about the death: The Minty family hired a lawyer several months after Douglas was killed, and he helped navigate them through the system.
“If we had not gotten a lawyer, we would never have gotten the information that we did get,” she said. “Our case went to an inquest, and even after the inquest, you still didn’t have all the information.”
She said the family did meet with SIU investigators after the investigation was completed, and they gave them a copy of the news release and showed them photos of the knife, which Pinder said was a pocket knife that Douglas was given as a souvenir. The SIU said there were no fingerprints on it, Pinder said.
At the inquest, Pinder said she heard the 911 call, and found out that information was not relayed to police that Minty was developmentally delayed. She also had the name of the subject officer confirmed.
“It is important to have his name, because my brother’s name is out there,” she said. “How do I know what this police officer’s done before? I don’t know how much experience he’s got, anybody who’s had dealings with him, I don’t know anything about him at all.” Should the SIU report be made public? “Yes, they should. If you look at our case, the information they give you is very sparse. There’s hardly anything to it.
“If you read the writeup that they put out, there’s very little information in it.”
Ruth Schaeffer
What happened: Her son, Levi Schaeffer, 30, was killed at a remote camping area by an OPP officer from the Pickle Lake detachment, about an eight-hour drive north of Thunder Bay, in 2009. The two officers who arrived on scene said they believed Schaeffer had stolen a boat.
Schaeffer, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, advanced on them with a 10centimetre knife, according to their notes. But there was a problem with their notes — they had been written after consulting a lawyer.
The officers were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, but then-SIU director Ian Scott did note at the time that consulting a lawyer “flies in the face” of what makes notes reliable: “independence and contemporaneity.”
The Schaeffer case, and that of Douglas Minty, another man shot dead by the OPP in 2009, eventually landed before the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in 2013 that police officers under SIU investigation cannot have a lawyer vet their notes. What she found out about the death: She said she learned from the newspaper that no charges were being laid against the police officers, and that Scott had found the issue around the notes problematic. Schaeffer said she went to see a lawyer right away, which kicked off the case that went to the Supreme Court.
She said most of what she knows about her son’s death, including the name of the subject officer, Kris Wood, came from that court case. She said she also learned that her son’s first words to the officers were: “Is there anything I can do to be of assistance?”
She said she could not recall if she asked for the director’s full report, saying she was in a state of shock at the time.
Wood’s name was also revealed at a coroner’s inquest, which left Schaeffer with more questions than answers. Should the SIU report be made public?
“Absolutely . . . The press release is a précis version of what happened and is sort of assuming the public is stupid. We’re not stupid, and we’d like to have a fully documented account of serious injury and death caused by public service workers that we pay with our own tax money. Being the family of a deceased person who was murdered by the police, my family member never embarrassed me.
"He did nothing wrong. . . . Some people have an emotional crisis, there is no shame in that, there is only shame in public employees if they don’t deal with the situation properly. . . . I can understand why some people would not want those things to be public, but I think for the greater good, it would be better that it was.”
La Tanya Grant What happened: Grant’s cousin, Jermaine Carby, 33, was shot dead by Peel Region Police in September 2014 on a Brampton street. Police said he had exited a car and was advancing on them with a knife, something his family disputes.
The SIU cleared the officer who killed Carby, and no discipline charges were laid by the police force. But in an unusual statement, SIU director Tony Loparco condemned the actions of an unnamed police officer who removed a key piece of evidence — a serrated kitchen knife — from the scene. The knife was only turned over to SIU investigators several hours later.
“The removal of the knife ensures that some members of the community will harbour concerns, legitimate concerns in my view, regarding the very existence of the knife,” Loparco wrote last year.
What she found out about the death: The SIU probe into Carby’s death took almost a year, and Grant said she would constantly call and email investigators for updates but said her queries were rarely returned.
Loparco and investigators offered to meet with the family after the investigation was completed, a meeting that lasted five hours but did not answer many of the family’s questions. She said Loparco made it clear that the family would not get access to the full report, only the news release that went out to the general public.
“We still don’t know the name of the driver (who was in the car with Jermaine when he died), who the officer who shot him was, there were inconsistencies about whether drugs were found in the car,” she said.
Grant said Loparco did say that there were no fingerprints on the knife, but it did have Carby’s DNA. She still doesn’t know why the officer who removed the knife has not been charged or disciplined.
A coroner’s inquest into Carby’s death begins next month in Brampton. Should the SIU director’s report be made public? “Yes, because I think the families and the community has a right to know exactly what happened, and whether the investigation was thorough or mediocre,” she said. “I don’t understand why other provinces are allowing people to know and we’re not. In Ontario it seems like it has to be secret.” Simone Wellington What happened: Wellington’s son, 15-year-old Duane Christian, was killed by police while at the wheel of a stolen van in the parking lot of his Scarborough apartment building in June, 2006. Two months later, the SIU cleared Const. Steve Darnley, saying he was justified in shooting Christian to prevent his partner from being deliberately run down. What the family found out about the death: After learning no charges would be laid in her son’s death, Wellington arranged a meeting with investigators from the SIU and hired a lawyer to attend in order to help make the SIU clarify their decision. To Wellington, the explanation provided to the family about the circumstances of her son’s death do not add up in terms of the area where the shooting occurred.
“There isn’t enough room for it to have happened. . . . It still doesn’t make any sense to me, and I’m still trying to get them to explain how it makes sense to them,” she said. “We left there, fully knowing we were going to have to sue (to get information) . . . Even now I don’t know.”
Wellington and her family launched a yearslong battle for answers. She became a paralegal and her brother, Roy Wellington, quit his job at Manulife to go to law school. Roy Wellington told the Star in 2011 he did it because of a promise to his sister soon after Duane died: “We’re going to find out what happened.”
Roy acted as a legal assistant throughout the coroner’s inquest into Christian’s death, alongside Peter Rosenthal. But afterward, the family still felt they did not understand why and how Christian died, so they launched what is believed to be the first lawsuit against the SIU: a landmark $2 million negligence claim alleging the watchdog’s investigation was fraught with problems.
In the lawsuit Wellington alleged the SIU’s failure to conduct a competent probe robbed them of their right to have a reasonable understanding of the circumstances of Christian’s death. The case went to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which ruled victims and their families have no right to sue the SIU for negligent investigations. The court ruled the watchdog’s role in probing police is aimed at protecting the public, not answering to victims and their families. “There’s absolutely no sense of closure that you get, none, because the questions are always there. And we’re talking almost 10 years ago. And I don’t expect that I’m ever going to get those answers.” Should the SIU director’s report be made public: “I think we should know where some of our tax dollars are going, I think they should be held accountable as to how the heck did you come up with this. And maybe then, there wouldn’t be such a negative view (of the SIU), especially in the black community.”
Joanne MacIsaac What happened: Her brother, 47-year-old Michael MacIsaac, died after being shot twice by Durham Region Police in December 2013. He had run naked from his Ajax home in the dead of winter, and police said he was advancing on them with a table leg. His family believes he was having an epileptic seizure.
The officer spoke to the SIU, but declined to provide his notes, as is his right under current legislation. He was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing.
What she found out about the death: “They didn’t give us anything,” MacIsaac said of her meeting with SIU investigators at a lawyer’s office after the probe was completed.
She also accused the SIU of telling the media there would be no criminal charges at the same time as she and her family were waiting in a room at the lawyer’s office to find out the results of the investigation.
MacIsaac said the investigators did not tell her family much more than what was already contained in the news release posted online.
“All that we know to be true came from our own work,” she said. And work they did. The MacIsaac family has likely done more independent probing of a death in Ontario than any other family who has lost a loved one in a police shooting.
Among other things, they’ve hired two private investigators, spoken with ballistic and forensic experts, had an independent autopsy performed, requested Michael’s medical records, filed complaints with the ministry of health and the office of the independent police review director, and canvassed the street where Michael was shot to speak with neighbours. One of Michael’s sisters, a civil engineer, also did a complete drawing to scale of the scene where Michael was shot. Should the SIU director’s report be made public? “I think they should be released because we have spent months and lots of money so we can do our own thorough investigation, because the information they gave us in our meeting is just riddled with inaccuracies and when we asked questions, they didn’t even answer us,” she said.
“I want it made public. We have nothing to hide.”
Willie Reodica What happened: Reodica’s son, 17-year-old Jeffrey, was shot three times in the back in May, 2004, after undercover Toronto police responded to a call about a fight between two groups of teenagers near Bellamy Rd. and Lawrence Ave. E. He died three days later after being taken off life support. Four months later, the SIU cleared Det. Const. Dan Belanger, ruling the shooting was legally justified because Jeffrey was armed with a knife, though there was conflicting witness testimony about whether he was armed.
What the family learned: Reodica said he felt the family got very little about the event itself from the meeting with the SIU when he was told the result of the watchdog’s investigation. But alongside a news release announcing the decision, the SIU did release an appendix containing responses to some concerns raised by the family during the investigation — among them the fact that there were conflicting eyewitness accounts among the 31 civilian and five police witnesses.
The SIU acknowledged at the time that there was “by no means unanimity amongst the witnesses,” some of whom were “either directly involved or watching a very dynamic and upsetting scenario unfold.”
Jeffrey’s death went to an inquest, which heard from 47 witnesses, much of it conflicting evidence. Reodica said he was not satisfied the inquest got to the bottom of what happened.
The case later became part of a probe into the SIU by former Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin. Barry Swadron, the Reodica family’s lawyer, said at the time that he was pleased Marin was looking into the case. Swadron said he tried “in many ways to obtain information from the SIU. . . . But was stonewalled by the SIU at virtually every turn.” Should the SIU report be made public: “Naturally. It should be out in the open.”
Jackie Christopher
What happened: Christopher’s son, O’Brien Christopher-Reid, was 26 years old when he was shot dead by Toronto police in June 2004, after reportedly advancing toward them with a knife. He had been diagnosed with paranoid delusional disorder.
All three officers on scene in Edwards Gardens fired from about 4 to 8 feet away, according to the SIU, which declined to criminally charge the officers. Christopher-Reid was shot four times — three times in the back and once on the side.
What she found out about the death: The SIU director and two investigators came to Christopher’s home to tell her that no charges would be laid, and that they believed the officers fired in self-defence.
“He was reading from something, but I didn’t get a copy of it,” she said, adding that much of what he told her she had already learned during the course of the investigation.
After initially being told that O’Brien had been shot in the chest, Christopher said it was only at the coroner’s inquest where she found out that he had actually been shot in the back, and the bullet had exited his chest cavity.
Should the SIU report be made public? “I think they should be. If I had a copy of the report, I would at least know what happened. Even today, people ask me: What happened? There are too many inconsistencies around the deaths of our children. . . . The system needs to be held accountable and the SIU is a big part of that.”