Ontario’s police watchdog says two Hamilton officers involved in the fatal shooting of a man in an apartment building last year used reasonable force in the face of what they believed was an imminent threat of serious harm or death.
The director of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Joseph Martino, says he has determined there are no reasonable grounds to believe the officers who opened fire on a 43-year-old man on Nov. 10 committed a criminal offence.
The man’s family has identified him as Erixon Kabera, a father of three who they said dedicated his life to his family and community.
When it initially announced its investigation last year, the SIU said Hamilton police were responding to reports of a man “acting in a threatening manner” and there was an “exchange of gunfire” with police.
The agency later said it did not appear the man had discharged a firearm before he was shot.
In a report released on Friday, the SIU says the man was holding a replica handgun and raised it in the direction of the officers as he walked towards them in the building’s hallway, causing one of the officers to fire as many as eight rounds.
The report says the man continued to walk toward the officers, and the other officer fired six to eight shots. Both officers lost their footing as they walked backward and stumbled to the ground, the SIU says.
The officer who first opened fire lost her gun as she fell and used a stun gun, and moments later, the other officer fired another seven or eight shots, it says.
The man collapsed and later died in hospital. An autopsy found he died from multiple gunshot wounds, the report says.
Martino said the officers “honestly believed they were looking at an actual gun” and “their misapprehension was a reasonable one.”
It looked like a gun, the man held it like a gun and a neighbour had just told the officers they believed he had a gun with him, Martino wrote.
Under the circumstances, it made sense that the officers would use their guns to protect themselves “from what they justifiably believed was an imminent threat of grievous bodily harm or death,” the director said.
One of the officers told SIU investigators he believed the man had been the first to open fire, but it appears he mistook the other officer’s initial gunfire for shots coming from the man, Martino wrote, describing it as “an honest but mistaken belief in the highly charged atmosphere that prevailed.”
The family’s lawyer said they’re “disappointed” with the SIU’s findings.
“Erixon was loved by many and is deeply missed by his family, friends, and his community both in Canada and in Rwanda. The family is reviewing the report and considering their legal options. They will be making no further
comment at this time,” a statement reads.
