As Crown rests case, here’s what the jury has heard so far
The Crown has closed its case against Umar Zameer, a 34-yearold accountant on trial for the firstdegree murder of Toronto police Const. Jeffrey Northrup in the underground parking garage beneath Nathan Phillips Square.
The key issue in this high-profile trial is whether Zameer knew Northrup — working in plain clothes that evening — was a police officer when he ran him over with his BMW, and did he do so deliberately or was this a horrific, tragic accident?
Here’s what the jury has heard as the trial now turns to the defence:
The case for first-degree murder
Soon after Northrup, 55, was killed on July 2, 2021, the city’s police chief called it a “deliberate and intentional act.”
At trial, that version of Northrup’s death has been best supported by the eyewitness accounts of his police colleagues.
When Old City Hall’s clock tower struck midnight ending Canada Day 2021, Zameer, his wife, Aaida Shakih, and their two-year-old son decided to head home to Woodbridge. Fatefully, it was around the same time that Northrup and his partner, Lisa Forbes, descended into the largely deserted underground, hunting for a stabbing suspect.
They were in plain clothes that night: Northrup dressed in shorts, a T-shirt and a button-down shirt; Forbes in jean shorts and a T-shirt. Both had their police badges on chains around their necks.
On the stand, Forbes testified that she and Northrup approached Zameer’s BMW, clearly identified themselves as officers, saying “Stop, police,” and asked to speak to him.
In response, she said, Zameer stepped on the gas trying to flee, striking her partner head-on and running him over, killing him.
Two other plain-clothes officers, who were in an unmarked police van that blocked in the Zameer vehicle, gave vivid accounts that supported Forbes’ version. They told the jury they saw Zameer ignore police demands to stop before he drove forward, reversed, sideswiped the officers and then ran over Northrup as he stood in front of the vehicle waving his hands.
“Jeff braces for impact, faces the vehicle, both his hands are up in the air … he bounces off the hood of the car and then he lands forward on the floor,” Const. Antonio Correa told the jury, fighting back tears.
Although the officers all suggested Zameer should have known he was being approached by police, Correa, conceded they had no grounds to lawfully detain or arrest him.
Conflicting witness accounts
This week, the Crown called Zameer’s wife Shaikh, 34, to the witness stand.
Shaikh, who was eight months pregnant at the time, told the jury she was terrified that Northrup and Forbes were robbers out for money, or worse, and that this fear sent the couple fleeing a life-and-death situation.
As the pair of plain-clothes officers were banging on the window, she told the jury she thought: “If they eventually do break the glass, they’re going to hurt us, all three of us, it’s over.”
She noted that, a month earlier, a family had been run down and killed in London, Ont., merely because they were Muslim. She, like the women killed in London, was wearing a hijab that evening.
Shaikh insisted the couple did not know Northrup and Forbes were police officers, nor did they realize they had run over anyone — let alone an officer — until after Zameer was arrested and handcuffed at the garage’s exit. (Two Spanishspeaking witnesses — also called by the prosecution — testified they had no idea the armed men arresting Zameer were officers and were so scared they crashed through a barricade to escape.)
Video footage captured both the Zameer family’s Canada Day wanderings and a critical few choppy frames of footage of the BMW’s movement as it ran over Northrup — taken from one surveillance camera mounted on the ceiling at a distance on level P2. (It didn’t record the interaction before that, nor show when and where Northrup ended up on the ground.)
In one key spot, the jury saw the Zameer family pass by the same shirtless stabbing victim Forbes would later interview outside City Hall, kicking off the officers’ move to the garage. Shaikh described being unnerved by the sight of the man.
She finished her testimony with a withering takedown of how police took her initial statement to investigators — given from hospital later the same day — and nonetheless still told the public the killing was deliberate.
“They said that Umar, purposefully, intentionally … murdered a police officer,” she told the jury, through tears — “I’ve never felt so betrayed.”
The evidence of Toronto police accident reconstruction expert, Sgt. Jeff Bassingthwaite — called this week by the prosecution — contradicted the officers’ accounts of what happened.
The TPS veteran told the jury that, when Zameer reversed his BMW, Northrup was dealt a “glancing blow” that knocked him to the ground. He was not, therefore, in front of the vehicle waving his arms when the BMW proceeded over top of the downed officer.
(Although several handprints were found on the front hood, only a single print from Northrup’s baby finger was identified. In Bassingthwaite’s opinion, this corroborated the defence theory that Northrup was already lying on the asphalt when Zameer ran him over.)
After Bassingthwaite finished answering Cantlon’s questions, it was Hasan’s turn.
Typically, the purpose of cross-examination is to test the credibility, reliability and consistency of the testimony given by a witness. Counsel will challenge a witness’s version of events, with the aim of impeaching his or her evidence while strengthening his client’s position.
This wasn’t necessary.
And just as he did with Shakih, defence lawyer Nader Hasan employed a gentle, kid-glove approach, inviting Bassingthwaite to agree with the defence perspective, which he repeatedly did.
“During the reversing movement, a pedestrian was knocked down. That’s your finding?” Hasan asked Bassingthwaite. “Correct.”
“As the BMW proceeded forward, Jeffrey Northrup was on the ground from being knocked down,” Hasan continued, adding, “that was your finding, and you stand by this finding?”
“Correct.”
“Knocked and on the ground, and the vehicle drives forward when he’s knocked down. That’s what you’re describing?”
“Correct.”
What’s to come from the defence
A defendant’s decision to take the stand in a murder trial is often kept secret until the last moment. But, in this case, Hasan has given every indication Zameer will testify, likely early next week.
Justice Anne Molloy has told jurors they should brace for a “really long charge” — referring to her eventual instructions to them after the close of evidence, expected midmonth.
There are “a lot of issues to cover,” much of it “very technical,” she warned.
The trial continues.