Police cleared in fatal shooting of man in crisis in northwestern Ont.

An investigation has cleared an Ontario Provincial Police officer who shot and killed a man who had doused himself in gasoline, started a fire at a park office in Kenora and came at first responders holding meat cleavers.

The incident began in and around the administration office building at Anicinabe Park just after noon on June 25, 2024.

Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit took over the case because someone had been killed during an interaction with police.

The man, pushing a shopping cart full of wood, doused himself in gas, poured it on the office building and the wood in the cart.

He set the cart on fire and left it beside the building, setting it on fire. He then clutched the two meat cleavers, hollering that no one had helped him.

The first OPP officer arrived at 12:05 p.m. and tried to speak with the man.

“He asked him to calm down and drop the knives,” the SIU said in its incident narrative.

“The complainant was extremely upset and waved the machetes in front of him. He said that no one helped him.”

More police arrived in the following minutes, including the canine unit. Firefighters were also quickly on the scene.

Police “continued to talk to the complainant, attempting to have him drop the knives,” the SIU said.

“The complainant refused and challenged the officers to shoot him. He walked back and forth beside the northwest side of the building, the north side of which was ablaze.”

An OPP officer who arrived around 12:13 took charge of the situation and devised a plan involving firefighters.

“The details of the plan remain unclear on the evidence, but involved firefighters hosing down the north side of the building with water,” the SIU said.

“It was hoped that the water would, directly or indirectly, whether by distracting the complainant or causing him to lose balance, permit the officers an opportunity to safely take the complainant into custody.”

However, as firefighters hosed down the building in the area next to the man, he walked off the deck in front of the burning building toward police and firefighters, still holding the meat cleavers.

“He took three steps in the parking lot in the direction of the firefighters and group of officers … when the officer fired three times,” the SIU said.

“The complainant collapsed to the ground. The time was 12:22 p.m.”

A short time later, the officer who shot and killed the man was back in his vehicle, taking deep breaths.

“I don’t know if that was the right call,” he said, in a statement recorded on the camera inside the police vehicle.

In his decision, SIU director Joseph Martino wrote that under the circumstances, the officer fired to protect himself and other first responders from an imminent threat.

While officers with less lethal weapons (ARWEN) had been called in, they were at a training session and were far from the scene. And there was an imminent threat, he wrote.

“Evidence includes the knives in the complainant’s hands, his movement in the direction of the officers and firefighters, his proximity to the police and firefighters when the gunfire occurred (and) his volatile behaviour to that point,” Martino wrote.

Second thoughts

“In the aftermath of the shooting, (the officer was) expressing second thoughts about what had happened, but indicating he fired his weapon because the complainant was moving towards him and others.”

Other officers on the scene said “they were on the brink of firing their weapons as well when (the officer) discharged the C8 rifle,” Martino wrote.

“There was no reason to believe that the complainant was not then on the precipice of a knife attack on the first responders.”

He also analyzed the decision by the lead officer on the scene to try and distract the man using the firehose. While it wasn’t successful, Marino said there were no apparent better options.

“None of the officers were equipped with an ARWEN and the nearest one was some distance away … at a training exercise,” Martino said.

“The use of a (stun gun) was also ruled out because it appeared that the complainant had doused himself with a flammable liquid. A police dog was on scene, but the handler … decided against the use of the dog. With the fire continuing to grow, the dog handler was concerned that a dog deployment would place the complainant at greater risk from the blaze.”

Unfortunately, the plan using the firehose failed, and it led to the man walking away from the fire and toward the emergency responders, leading to the shooting.

“The officer had a difficult decision to make and not much time in which to make it,” Martino wrote.

“The fire was growing, and the complainant was standing perilously close to it … As all other tactics had failed to that point, and there was some prospect of (the) plan succeeding.”

Read the full decision here.