The province’s police watchdog has cleared two Toronto police officers of any wrongdoing in the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old during a traffic stop in North York earlier this year.
The Special Investigations Unit says around 11 p.m. on April 20, police pulled over a red Infiniti on Sheppard Avenue West near Bathurst Street because the vehicle was missing a front license plate and its windows were heavily tinted.
When officers detected the smell of cannabis in the vehicle, they asked the six occupants of the car to step out. After three of the occupants were escorted out of the car, the SIU says the teen who was in the back seat reached to his left with his right hand before swinging his right hand in the direction of the open door and began shooting at police.
One officer fired “multiple times” in the direction of the teen from the back passenger side of the vehicle, while a second officer also fired “multiple rounds” in the teen’s direction from the front of the vehicle.
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The SIU says the 16-year-old from Toronto was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead the next day. According to the autopsy report, the teen was struck nine times, including four wounds to the back of the head.
The SIU report found police discharged between 24 to 27 rounds during the gunfight.
“Incredibly, aside from the Complainant, no other person suffered gunshot injuries, including neither of the subject officials, each of whom was in the other’s crossfire for most of the exchange,” the SIU report says.
Following an investigation, SIU Director Joseph Martino concluded that there are no reasonable grounds to believe that either police officer committed a criminal offence.
Martino went on to say that when the teen pointed a gun in the direction of police and fired at point-blank range, “the officers could only have concluded that their lives were in immediate peril and that action of some type was imperative if they were going to survive. It makes sense, on this record, that they would resort to return gunfire to defend themselves.”
Martino added that the officer’s response – multiple rounds fired in rapid succession – constituted reasonable force.
“The number of shots fired by the officers is worthy of scrutiny, but is understandable in the final analysis given the evidence that the [teen] discharged his firearm three or four more times after the officers first started to fire,” wrote Martino.
