Woman shot by Peel police won’t give victim statement
Court adjourns former officer’s plea hearing for one month
A Mississauga woman shot by a rookie Peel Regional Police officer last year refused to provide a victim impact statement in a Brampton courtroom Wednesday during a plea hearing for the former officer.
Despite Chantelle Krupka’s refusal to participate in the hearing, Superior Court Justice Hugh Fraser approved the Crown’s request for a onemonth adjournment to provide Krupka, a Black woman shot during a domestic call on Mother’s Day in 2020, with enough time to rethink her position.
Krupka interrupted the proceedings on Wednesday to say, “I’ve made my decision and I’m going to stick by it. Unless you’re going to fix the entire system or abolish and rebuild it in the next month, I don’t want to say anything.”
The judge thanked her for her input, before granting the Crown’s request for an adjournment.
“It’s possible that her position may change,” Fraser said. “It’s also possible that it may not.”
Valerie Briffa, the accused, looked on during the hearing held via Zoom conference call, as her defence counsel, Joseph Markson, and provincial prosecutor Ian Bulmer jointly agreed that the courts had to offer Krupka more time, even though she made it clear she did not wish to contribute a victim impact statement. Such a statement is usually an important part of the court’s consideration when reaching an appropriate sentence.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU), the province’s police watchdog, charged Briffa with criminal negligence causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon and careless use of a firearm, offences that each carry the possibility of jail time upon conviction.
On Wednesday, Bulmer told Fraser, “the matter was set to proceed before you today, to take a plea,” but the Crown was asking for an adjournment. The details of the agreed facts behind the plea are expected to be heard at the next appearance.
Bulmer said that after discussions with Krupka’s lawyer before the hearing, the Crown thought Krupka wanted to provide a statement, but was notified Tuesday that she had changed her mind.
Bulmer said the public interest is not served if the complainant feels that she’s “alienated by the process.”
“The Crown is simply wary of proceeding at this time given those developments,” he added.
Krupka’s lawyer, Aliah Elhouni, told the Star that her client wanted the hearing to proceed without her input on Wednesday.
She said Krupka found the victim impact statement filing to be a “very controlled process” that she felt was limiting her ability to say a lot of what is important to her.
“The statements themselves can be retraumatizing for people, especially because of how limited they are,” El-houni said.
Markson agreed that the courts have taken the “right road” in being mindful and respectful of the complainant’s input.
“Ms. Briffa is very conscious of the effects of this incident upon the complainant,” Markson said.
Briffa was still on probation, just months into the job, when she accompanied another officer to a Mississauga home on May 10 — an encounter that ended with Krupka, then 34, being Tasered, then shot. In a rare move, Briffa has since resigned from the police service.
Police officers in Ontario are rarely fired after facing criminal charges, and can be suspended with pay for years as the case makes its way through the justice system. The officer then usually faces a disciplinary tribunal to determine whether he or she will be fired.
Krupka has told the Star in the past that as a Black woman, she feared the police even before she was shot outside her home.
“I am afraid of police, because I have seen so many Black people killed or abused by police and I have bad experiences with them before,” she wrote in a recent complaint to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), the province’s police complaints watchdog.
The allegations contained in the complaint have not been proven.
Krupka said the incident last year began after she got into an argument with her ex-partner over access to their 10-year-old son. Krupka said she’d asked to see her son on Mother’s Day and, when her ex-partner did not agree to this, they got into an argument by text. Krupka said she later got a call from an officer saying police were outside.
According to Krupka, she and her partner Michael Headley were both Tasered outside her Mississauga home. It was as she lay wounded from the shock of the Taser that she was shot, said Krupka.
The bullet struck her in the abdomen and fractured her hip. She has gone through months of physiotherapy.
Krupka provided a detailed summary of the incident in her written complaint to the OIPRD, which she provided to the media.