OPP officer’s shot killed baby, SIU says
Months after Kawartha Lakes incident, public knows little about how father and son died
Seventy-seven days after an alleged child abduction ended in the chaotic double shooting of a father and his baby son on a rural Ontario road, the province’s police watchdog confirmed Thursday that police fired the bullet that killed the boy.
Just how 18-month-old Jameson Shapiro ended up dead from a single gunshot has been the subject of speculation and controversy since the November day in Kawartha Lakes when three Ontario Provincial Police officers opened fire on a pickup truck driven by a 33-year-old man following a collision that seriously injured an officer.
Inside the man’s truck was the baby and, according to officials, a handgun — a piece of evidence that left open the possibility the boy had been shot dead before police opened fire.
The uncertainty ended Thursday. “The SIU can today confirm that the child’s death in Kawartha Lakes was the result of being shot by police,” reads a brief statement issued by the Special Investigations Unit, which probes all deaths and injuries involving police in Ontario.
The fatal shooting of a baby by police is believed to be a first in the SIU’s more than 30-year history.
The boy’s father was also shot by police during the encounter. He died in hospital a week later.
Although the most pressing question has now been answered, there remain several key unknowns as the SIU continues its investigation — a probe that will determine whether criminal charges should be laid against the officers.
“There are a lot of loose pieces of this puzzle that have to be put together before there’s a decision made,” said Ian Scott, a Toronto lawyer and former director of the SIU. “This is just horrible.”
The shooting on Nov. 26, 2020, happened shortly after OPP officers were summoned to a call about a father abducting his young son from the Municipality of Trent Lakes, near Bobcaygeon.
According to the SIU, police in nearby Kawartha Lakes later attempted to stop a pickup truck connected to the abduction when the truck crashed into an OPP cruiser and another vehicle.
An OPP officer, who was standing outside the cruiser attempting to lay down a spike belt, was seriously injured. He was released from hospital just last week.
Following the crash, three OPP officers opened fire on the pickup truck.
The baby was shot and died at the scene while the father died later in hospital.
Whether the truck was moving at the time of the shooting is a central question.
SIU spokesperson Monica Hudon said Thursday that she could provide an answer to that question at this stage, and also could not say whether the father had at any point in the incident fired his gun or pointed it in the direction of police.
None of the three officers at the centre of the probe have been interviewed, Hudon confirmed.
Officers who are the subject of criminal investigations are not compelled to speak to SIU investigators or provide their notes, something the current and past SIU directors acknowledge is controversial.
“I think it’s folly. I think it’s wrong,” said Howard Morton, who was the director of the SIU from 1992 to 1995.
Lawyers for police officers, however, have said that officers under criminal investigation, like any Canadian, have a charter right to avoid self-incrimination.
Scott speculated that the SIU was likely reaching out to the officers’ lawyers anew, trying to get them to give statements. Without them, it’s going to be “very, very” difficult to determine liability, including what was going through the officers’ minds at the time.
“I can’t believe for a single moment that the police officer intended to kill the child. That’s beyond comprehension,” Scott said. “But you really only have one side of the story, and one side of the story is a pretty ugly one right now.”
Both the OPP commissioner and the Ontario Provincial Police Association expressed condolences to the family of the boy.
“We are all devastated when a child tragically dies,” read a statement from the police association.
“The OPP Association respects the investigative process. We continue to support our members affected by the incident.”
“We continue to offer our deepest sympathies to the family and those affected as we await the final report of the Kawartha Lakes SIU investigation,” said OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique.
The SIU’s update Thursday does not include any information about whether the investigation has determined which officer’s shot killed the baby.
In the weeks after the fatal shootings, the SIU faced mounting pressure to provide answers about who killed the baby, something SIU director Joseph Martino acknowledged in a recent interview with the Star.
“The worst thing that could happen in terms of SIU credibility is to release information prematurely, and that information ends up being incorrect,” he said, noting the watchdog agency was making an effort to release more information about the investigative process.
That has included updates about the collection of forensic evidence and a trajectory analysis on the truck. A Dec. 14 update said post-mortem examinations had been conducted on the baby and the man, and 14 witness officers had been interviewed.
The determination that a police bullet killed the baby was finally made after a review of forensic evidence, the SIU said Thursday, including the postmortem exam on the child and blood stain analysis on the pickup truck.
Scott said the investigation was complex and in some complicated cases, there can be a peer-review process during the post-mortem phase, in which multiple forensic pathologists are involved. Ballistics information can also take time, he noted.
Morton said the results of tests, such as an examination of the bullet trajectories, should have been done far more quickly.
“Why the delay when these are government agencies performing these tests? Why would they wait so long?” Morton said. “Even with the pandemic, there’s no excuse for it taking that long.”