SIU leaves family out of the loop
Anthony Divers’s siblings demand answers into his slaying by police
It would have almost been easier to process if Anthony Divers had died in a car accident, his family says.
“At least we would have had some answers,” said his eldest sibling, Yvonne Alexander.
Divers, 36, was shot and killed at about midnight on Sept. 30 by a Hamilton police officer, who was re- sponding to a call about a man who had committed an assault and was reportedly armed with a gun, according to Ontario’s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which is investigating.
“There was an interaction and the officer discharged his firearm,” said a brief news release issued by the SIU at the time. More than two months later, Divers’ three siblings are left with little additional information. One thing of which they are convinced, however, is that Divers was not armed that night.
An eyewitness who spoke to Alexander said Divers, who was standing outside, took his hands out of his pockets when ordered to do so, after which he was shot, although he did not appear to be holding a weapon.
Two witnesses interviewed by the Hamilton Spectator said he did not appear to have a weapon.
“I knew in my heart of hearts that he wasn’t armed and to hear that confirmed was good,” Alexander said in a recent interview with the Star in her Hamilton home, along with her brother Edward Divers and sister Leslie Wilson.
A Hamilton police spokesperson referred all questions about the case to the SIU, which says it is working as quickly as it can to complete its investigation and provide more information.
Anthony “Tony” Divers, described as a man who always put his family first, was the fourth person shot dead by Hamilton police in five years.
The case offers a window into how a family grapples with the grief over losing a loved one to a police shooting and also the kind of public scrutiny that comes with it.
When initial stories emerged about Divers’ shooting, they inevitably mentioned his conviction for manslaughter stemming from the 2002 stabbing death of Ryan McDonald during a home invasion. Divers’ siblings had to deal with the online comments that his death was “an eye for an eye.”
“We have always kept that family in our thoughts,” Wilson said of McDonald. As Edward puts it, the officer responding on Sept. 30 was most likely not even aware of Divers’ criminal background and the shooting still raises the very important question of how police deal with individuals in crisis.
Divers’ siblings — who are angry and frustrated with what they see as a sluggish pace in the SIU’s investigation and lack of answers so far — are sharing their story with the public for the first time.
An SIU spokesperson said she could not offer a timeline as to when the probe would be completed.
“While we attempt to conclude investigations as quickly as possible, our priority is to conduct a thorough investigation,” Monica Hudon said in an email. “The SIU has been in regular contact with two of Mr. Divers’ siblings. All communications have been prompt, courteous, professional and as transparent as possible given the limitations during an ongoing SIU investigation.”
Roy Wellington, a lawyer who has been assisting the family, described the lack of information being shared by the SIU as “unfortunate.”
“To learn that your loved one has died in such a sudden and violent way is difficult enough, and it’s worse when you get to know absolutely nothing,” he said. “From the information that has come out thus far, everyone should be concerned about what took place that evening.”
Like other families who have gone through a similar ordeal, the Divers siblings say they’ve lost confidence in the police as well as the civilian oversight of police in Ontario.
They set up a Go Fund Me page, called Justice for Tony, to raise money in order to hire their own investigator and legal counsel.
Divers, who had mental-health issues, was clearly in crisis that night, his family says. From what Alexander heard from the eyewitness, there appears to have been no attempt at de-escalating the situation before Divers was shot in the chest.
“Maybe I was guilty of this too in the past, when reading these kinds of stories, but when it does happen to you and you realize it’s happened to other families before, it just seems people don’t seem interested that police are killing people for no reason,” Edward said.
The siblings say they approached Chief Eric Girt following a police services board meeting in November, demanding answers to questions, including: Why wasn’t a Taser used? What about de-escalation tactics?
They say the chief responded by saying he wasn’t there.
“The one killer thing is when he turned to us, a grieving family who has lost their brother to police homicide, and said how this cop must feel right now,” Alexander said.
(Hamilton police did not respond to questions from the Star about this encounter, deferring to the SIU.)
Wellington said the Divers case highlights the need for police to have a clear plan when responding to calls for a person with a weapon, including being ready for the possibility that the person is actually not armed.
“When police enter into a situation that they themselves are told is likely to be dangerous, they need to be coming up with some sort of planning, rather than reacting, because their actions are shaped by the perceptions that they have,” he said.
Bullied aggressively as a child due to his height — he was nearly six-footfive — Divers also suffered later in life from post-traumatic stress disorder, his family said. It was mostly as a result of losing his parents — his “best friends in the whole world,” Edward said — within weeks of each other while he was incarcerated.
His family had tried to get him help where they could, but also found mental-health resources lacking. Recently, he was ready to chart a new path in his life, as he was planning to move out west “and start over,” his siblings say.
He was passionate about bodybuilding and personal training, and wanted to work on his modelling portfolio.
He also had a mutual “undying love” for his six nieces and one nephew, Wilson said, and would have wanted to start a family of his own.
“All of these things with my brother could have been avoided,” Edward said. “I just hope that this time is going to be different, that this cop will be held accountable.”