Officers argue names should be kept secret

Request follows lawsuit filed by family of man killed during mental health crisis

Shielding the identities of five officers involved in the fatal shooting of a mentally ill man would cloak the police killing in “unprecedented” secrecy and pose a serious risk to Canadian court transparency, an Ontario Superior Court heard Tuesday.

Legal arguments began in a lightning-rod case where five Peel Regional officers have made the rare request for a court-ordered publication ban on their identities. Online threats and broader, anti-police “vitriol” have created serious personal safety risks that justify placing a sweeping ban on the officers’ identities, the lawyer for the so-called “John Doe” officers argued in an ongoing lawsuit.

The unusual request comes in the wake of a $22-million lawsuit filed by the family of Ejaz Choudry, the 62-year-old Malton man killed by Peel police while in the midst of a mental health crisis in 2020. The lawsuit alleges the officers used deadly force without justification against a frail, racialized man who did not speak fluent English, allegations Peel police have denied.

That context of an alleged act of police brutality against a brownskinned, marginalized man is one reason why the “unprecedented” ban should not be granted, Simon Bieber, a lawyer for the Choudry family, argued.

The officers are seeking “extraordinary orders to conceal their identities from the public, and to cloak this proceeding in secrecy. They ask the Court to shield them from the accountability that this proceeding aims to achieve,” lawyers for family wrote in court filings.

Tuesday’s hearing is the latest development in a polarizing debate over the issue of naming officers who kill citizens while on duty. The Special Investigations Unit, which probes deaths involving police, only identifies officers if it lays criminal charges against them — a policy upheld by now-Chief Justice of Ontario Michael Tulloch in his 2017 review of police oversight.

Police accountability advocates, civil rights groups and media organizations, meanwhile, have long pushed for greater transparency, saying officers granted powers to kill must be subject to public scrutiny, even if their actions were justified. Withholding names means journalists and the public cannot know, for instance, if the officers have been involved in other use-offorce incidents or been previously accused of racial bias.

“You basically put a cloak of secrecy around violations by the police if their names are not public,” said Shakir Rahim, director of the criminal justice program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, among the interveners on the case.

“How do we know who is doing what if we never know who they are?”

Choudry, a father of four, was killed in June 2020, after his daughter called a non-emergency line and requested medical assistance, saying her father had schizophrenia and had not taken his medication. Peel Regional Police dispatched a tactical unit, and when Choudry moved toward police with a “large kitchen knife,” officers Tasered, fired rubber bullets at, then eventually fatally shot Choudry, according to the SIU.

His death came just a month after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis spurred a global reckoning over systemic racism and police violence. The day after Choudry’s death, hundreds gathered outside his Malton apartment to ask why a tactical unit was sent to a non-emergency call for a wellness check.

The five officers have never been named and were cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the SIU in 2021. Last year, in response to the family’s lawsuit, Peel Regional Police filed a motion seeking the publication ban and sealing order on the officers’ names and any identifying details, such as physical descriptions.

Ted Key, lawyer for the officers, told Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell on Tuesday that the request is in direct response to threats made after Choudry’s death and other use-of-forces incidents involving Peel police. Protest groups and anonymous social media posts have threatened to expose the officers and called them “murderers” and “killers,” he said.

In one online comment, someone wrote that they knew one of the officers, saying: “I know his house. Let’s deal with him there.” Although Peel police found the threat unsubstantiated, it nonetheless felt “personal” and “unnerving,” Key said.

“I am concerned for my safety and the safety of my family,” one unnamed officer wrote in an affidavit filed with the court.

“I am fearful that I could be identified, and an angry member of the public could attend my place of work or home.”

Bieber, the lawyer representing the Choudry family, said there wasn’t a “lick” of evidence showing that anything had come from comments or threats made at the time, accusing police of “propping up” the threats to create a climate of fear.

“All of this stuff is now years old. Nothing — nothing — at all has come up,” Bieber said.

Perell reserved his decision on the motion.