Testimony matches first words at scene, officer tells jury
Accused told cop ‘he had no idea they were police’
Umar Zameer’s statements minutes after he ran over Const. Jeffrey Northrup are consistent with his trial testimony that he was unaware he was being approached by police because they weren’t in uniform and were acting aggressively, according to a police witness who testified shortly before evidence in the first-degree murder trial concluded Friday.
The defence called Const. Ryan D’Souza to the witness box a day after Zameer testified that he was trying to get out of the parking lot beneath Nathan Phillip’s Square on July 2, 2021, because he thought his family was being ambushed and boxed in by criminals, unaware they were actually Toronto police officers working in plainclothes.
Within minutes of Northrup’s death on the parking level below, D’Souza arrived at an exit where he saw a damaged, unmarked police minivan with airbags deployed and parking arm gates destroyed by drivers who fled as the takedown happened.
D’Souza also noticed Zameer, handcuffed and kneeling, and his crying pregnant wife, Aaida Shaikh, holding a small child.
D’Souza asked the 34-year-old accountant what happened.
Looking “glazed” and “shocked,” Zameer told D’Souza he had recently moved to Canada — Zameer’s family arrived in January 2019 — and that he had heard about a stabbing and saw a lot of police cars and wanted to leave the area, the officer testified.
Zameer also told D’Souza after his family got into their car, a man and woman arrived and started hitting his window and door and that he also saw a black van. Zameer also told D’Souza he was scared and was trying to get away.
“He said he had no idea they were police,” D’Souza testified. Zameer told him he saw no police badges, and that the man — Northrup — reached into his pocket but he didn’t see what he had in his hand.
He also noted that neither the man nor woman were wearing police vests similar to what D’Souza was wearing.
“If he had known they were police, he would not have gone,” D’Souza said, recalling what Zameer told him and echoing what Zameer said in court on Thursday.
Also Friday, the prosecution recalled Const. Sharnil Pais, one of two plainclothes officers inside the black van that boxed in Zameer’s BMW, and later rammed it at the garage exit.
Pais said after his colleague removed Zameer from the BMW, he pulled him up by the arm and pointed to the “flesh and blood” on his BMW and told him “That’s my partner you just ran over, you ran over a cop, get up.”
Pais said Zameer responded that “there was a stabbing in the area earlier, we were scared.”
The primary issue at trial is whether Zameer knew he was being approached by police officers, and whether he intended to hit Northrup with his vehicle.
The Crown’s position is that Zameer knew they belonged to law enforcement and that he intentionally ran Northrup down.
Justice Anne Molloy excused jurors Friday and told them to return to court Tuesday, when closing addresses are expected.