SIU clears Ottawa police officer who shot armed woman in Westboro in March

Ottawa police at the scene of a police-involved shooting in Ottawa's Westboro neighbourhood on Friday, Mar. 22, 2024. (Andrew Adlington/CTV News Ottawa)

Ontario's police watchdog has cleared an Ottawa police officer who shot a woman in Westboro earlier this year following a brief chase and confrontation.

The incident happened the afternoon of March 22. According to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), it began when Ottawa police officers were notified about a vehicle with excessive tint on its windows and an out-of-province licence plate on Lepage Avenue. Officers attempted to stop the driver, but she drove away, over rocks at the end of Saigon Court, until she came to a stop at the intersection of Tweedsmuir and Avondale avenues because her tires were damaged.

The woman got out of the car and ran down Avondale Avenue. The SIU said she had a loaded handgun in her right hand.

The responding officer told her to drop the gun several times. She refused and kept running but, at one point, she began to turn toward the officer, at which point he fired four shots at her. The woman was taken to hospital in critical condition. Thirteen charges were laid against her as a result of the incident.

SIU director Joseph Martino said in a report Friday that evidence shows the officer's use of force was reasonable.

"The complainant, having repeatedly refused to drop the weapon and now moving to face the subject officer, gave the officer every reason to fear that she was about to shoot him," the report said. "In the circumstances, what was required in the moment was the complainant’s immediate incapacitation. And the only weapon with the necessary stopping power was the subject officer's gun."

The SIU noted that there are varying witness accounts of the woman's actions immediately before she was shot, with some people saying she was stumbling or that she had fallen to the ground when one or more of the officer's shots were fired.

"What is common ground, however, and what is key to the defence, is that the Complainant had either turned or was turning with the gun in the officer’s direction," Martino wrote. "On this record, I am satisfied the subject officer was justified in his conduct."