Inquest names officer in shooting

Constable says Jermaine Carby posed a threat during street check

For almost two years, Lorna Robinson had been waiting to see the face of the man who killed her son.

On Friday morning, Robinson got that wish, as Const. Ryan Reid’s name was made public for the first time at a coroner’s inquest into Jermaine Carby’s death.

Reid, who fired the shots that killed Carby after a traffic stop in 2014, told a jury and crowded courtroom that he wouldn’t do anything differently. He said Carby had a knife in his hand and was a threat to the officers there. His job, Reid said, was to neutralize that threat.

“I didn’t know Mr. Carby was going to pull out a knife. I didn’t know he was going to come at me,” Reid said.

Carby was a passenger in a car pulled over in September 2014. Though passengers are not required to give out personal information during traffic stops, the officer who conducted the stop, Const. Jason Senechal, testified on Thursday that he had been conducting a “street check” on Carby, a practice also known as carding.

After Senechal discovered an outstanding warrant for Carby in B.C. and asked him about it, Carby became defensive and pulled out a knife, the inquest heard.

On Friday, Reid spoke about the moment he shot Carby. Though there was some confusion about the number of shots, eventually it came out that seven had been fired. Three hit Carby, one in the back. Between the time Reid arrived and Carby was shot, four minutes passed.

Reid also said he did not talk to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) after the shooting, only to the internal Peel police investigation. Officers are not required to talk to the SIU, the watchdog mandated to investigate every case where an officer has killed or injured a member of the public.

In July 2015, when the SIU released the findings of its investigation clearing Reid of any wrongdoing, the unit’s director Tony Loparco released a statement referencing the difficulty the investigation had in getting the facts without Reid’s testimony.

The investigation did not name Reid, only making reference to “the officer.”

“While the officer was within his legal rights to choose to remain si- lent, the SIU is without any direct evidence regarding what is essentially a subjective element of the defence,” Loparco said in the statement.

Faisal Mirza, the lawyer representing the Carby family during the inquest, led a tense cross-examination of Reid.

He questioned Reid’s behaviour on that day, including why Reid had no Taser, why he didn’t conduct a patdown after making Carby step out of the car and why he didn’t read Carby his rights after making him step out of the car.

To those questions, Reid answered that the situation was fluid and there was little time to make decisions. He did say he asked for a Taser, but didn’t receive one.

“I asked repeatedly and yelled for a Taser,” he said.

The inquest also briefly heard from Const. Jim Tytler, who arrived on the scene after the shooting and gave Carby chest compressions.

Tytler was asked whether he saw a knife when he turned him over, but said he didn’t.

The issue of the knife will play a role in the coming days of the inquest. Reid and other officers have testified Carby had a knife in his hand, but no knife was found on the scene by the SIU. Instead, a knife was given to the SIU by an officer who had arrived just after the shooting and said he collected it from the scene.

In an interview after Reid’s testimony, Carby’s family expressed their frustration. La Tanya Grant, Carby’s cousin, said she found Reid’s testimony “disrespectful.”

“For him to say he would have done nothing differently shows me he has no regard for Jermaine’s life,” she said.

“For him to not even stand up and apologize to Jermaine’s mom in the courtroom, I found that was disrespectful as well,” she said.

Robinson said it was important for her to see the face of the man that killed her son, but she wasn’t happy with the testimony either.

“Even a dog or a cat, you don’t kill like that,” she said.

“How are you going to say that you would have not changed anything?”