York Regional Police officer who disobeyed superior officer cleared by SIU in shooting death of man in Vaughan

Man armed with gun shot 5 times by semi-automatic rifle as he fled police: SIU report

yorkregion.com
Laura Broadley
July 21, 2023

The Special Investigations Unit cleared a York Regional Police officer of criminal charges after he shot and killed a 25-year-old man on Oct. 9, 2022 in Vaughan.

On July 18, Joseph Martino, director of the Special Investigations Unit, said there were "no reasonable grounds to believe the officer had committed a criminal offence" in the man’s death, which happened in the main ballroom of the Universal Eventspace on Hwy. 7.

On the night of the shooting, officers were in the area of the banquet hall because of the amount of people that were there for a live music event. Just before midnight, a witness left the banquet hall to tell officers that a man had a gun in the lobby, according to the SIU report.

The subject officer and four other officers radioed the information they were given and were told by a sergeant to set up a containment around the venue but not to go inside, the report said.

The subject officer armed himself with a semi-automatic rifle and went to the vestibule of the hall to tell people to leave and prevent others from entering, the SIU report said.

In the report, the man who died is referred to as the complainant.

The subject officer and two others officers went inside the venue after one of them saw the complainant inside, the report said, adding the officer pointed his rifle at the man as he approached him in the lobby.

"Though he had been told by a superior officer to set up containment but not enter the facility, the officer explained that he disregarded that direction believing there was a real risk of gunplay by the complainant and an urgent need for police intervention," Martino said in the report

The complainant allegedly took a gun out of the pocket of his sweatshirt and put it in the front waistband or pocket of his pants, the report said. The man then began running toward the ballroom and the officer pushed him with the barrel of his rifle as he went through the ballroom doors, according to the SIU report.

The man appeared to be holding a gun through the front of his pants with his left hand while his right arm was raised, the report said.

The man ran through the ballroom toward the main stage, closely followed by the officer, when the officer shot him twice, according to the report. The man fell down but rolled onto his side and was shot two more times by the officer, the report said.

The man was taken to hospital, but died the next day.

An autopsy revealed the complainant suffered five gunshot wounds, which ultimately caused his death.

A semi-automatic pistol was recovered near the complainant, which had 10 unfired cartridges in the 10-capacity seated magazine, the SIU report said.

The officer believed the man had a gun even though he didn’t see it because the man had allegedly shown it to other people and threatened them with it, Martino said in the report. The man was running from the officer and not showing both his hands as police had directed him to, which would lead to the officer’s “reasonable fear” that he was reaching for a gun, according to Martino's report.

The SIU has closed the file.

YRP does an internal procedural review of every incident the SIU investigates. The review starts as soon as the SIU investigation finishes and looks at the whole incident, not a specific thing, Const. Laura Nicolle said.