Crown has reported 28 cases of ‘deliberately untruthful’ police officers in a decade: documents

Revelations are unfolding after prosecutors pushed to convict a man of first-degree murder for running over a police officer in the Toronto City Hall Parkade.

Ontario prosecutors have highlighted almost 30 cases in the past decade of police officers who were “deliberately untruthful” on the witness stand, according to documents obtained by CTV News.

Of the 28 cases in the data, eight involve the Toronto Police Service, four are from the Ontario Provincial Police, two each are from Cornwall, Ottawa and York Region, and one each is from Durham, Hamilton, London, Niagara, Peel, Waterloo, and Windsor.

“This is serious,” said former Toronto mayor John Sewell, who is now with the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition.

“I like the idea that they have a policy that when a judge says, ‘Hey, I find there’s a real problem with the evidence the police are presenting; maybe the police officer wasn’t honest,’ that it goes to someone who deals with that,” he said.

Among those cases in the list, produced by a Freedom of Information request, is the prosecution of Umar Zameer, who was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Const. Jeffrey Northrup in the Toronto City Hall parkade in 2021.

Zameer was acquitted in 2024 after Justice Anne Molloy highlighted for the jury that three officers who testified all seemed to have the same incorrect memory.

The mismatch between the video and forensic evidence at court was so concerning, Molloy said, that the jury should consider the possibility that they had colluded.

“They got this far, and it was a few inches away, perhaps from a wrongful conviction,” said Zameer’s lawyer, Nader Hasan, at the time, stating that the death was actually a tragic accident stemming from Zameer accelerating away from people who didn’t identify themselves as police officers.

This designation in Zameer’s case, which has not been previously reported, was another trigger for the Toronto Police Service to re-examine the officers’ testimony in the case.

In the wake of the acquittal, Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw requested a review by the OPP of the officer’s testimony, conduct, procedures, and training.

He also ordered a full review of all aspects of plainclothes policing, including equipment and procedures for officer and public safety.

It has been 17 months since the acquittal, and neither of those reports is finished, the TPS and the OPP confirmed.

Reached at an unrelated community event, Demkiw defended his officers.

“Our police officers work tirelessly day in and day out and serve in an incredibly honourable way. Time and time again, each and every day all across the city,” he said.

“When we do have allegations of misconduct, we take it seriously. We investigate it. We cooperate with all investigations, including oversight external to us.”

When asked why the two reviews were not completed yet, he replied, “The investigation continues.”

In a statement, the Toronto Police Association President Clayton Campbell said they are also supporting the officers involved.

“It is indisputable that these officers have been through a traumatic experience, witnessing their colleague, Jeff Northrup, run over and killed by a vehicle driven by Mr. Zameer,” Campbell said.

“While a jury has found no criminal intent—a decision that we respect—that is what happened and cannot be forgotten. The TPA will continue to stand by these officers and we are all eager for the OPP to complete its investigation,” he said.

The Crown policy, introduced in 2012, requires prosecutors to report “if a trial Crown becomes aware of credible and reliable information that an officer has been deliberately untruthful under oath.”

The first case that prompted this procedure to be enacted was in 2013, the documents show.

That’s when Justice Harriet Sachs acquitted Toronto drug squad Const. Gerrard Arulanandam of assault causing bodily harm and uttering threats while executing a search warrant in 2006 but said she was concerned of the officers’ “lack of truthfulness.”