Ontario’s police watchdog clears officers involved in fatal exchange of gunfire caught on bodycam footage

GRAPHIC WARNING: Viewer discretion is advised. Body camera footage appears to show the moments leading up to when Toronto police shot a 16-year-old boy.

The province’s police watchdog has cleared the two Toronto Police officers involved in a shooting in North York, where a exchange of gunfire resulted in the death of a 16-year-old boy.

The officers had pulled over a red Infiniti near Sheppard Avenue West and Bathurst Street as part of a routine traffic stop on the evening of April 20, as the two-door coupe was missing its front licence plate.

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said there were a total of six people in the vehicle when Toronto police pulled the vehicle over.

Police body camera footage, obtained by CTV News Toronto shortly after the incident, appeared to start with one of the responding officers asking a young woman seated in the backseat whether one of the passengers was her boyfriend.

The report notes there was an “odour of marijuana” emanating from the vehicle, prompting the Toronto officers to ask them to vacate the car so they can investigate.

The officer can then be seen pulling the latch to the front passenger seat, folding the seat forward to allow the occupants seated in the back seat to step out of the car.

When asked if anyone had weapons in the car, the SIU said one of the female passengers told police: “Not that I know.”

Shortly after, a male, seated in the back, appears forward and pulls out a semi-automatic pistol, firing toward the officer. The policeman immediately backs away from the car, firing multiple rounds at the vehicle while shouting, “gun, gun, gun.”

After an exchange of gunfire, the SIU said one of the officers looked into the back seat and saw one of the male passengers had been shot, checked the 16-year-old’s pulse and tried to pull him from the back seat. The teen had blood on his left leg and a gunshot wound to his right thigh, according to the SIU, and an officer applied a tourniquet to his leg.

“You didn’t have to shoot bro, you didn’t have to shoot bro, I saw it, he pulled it from under the seat and started shooting at me,” one of the officers involved in the shooting told a witness officer.

In the SIU report released on Friday, the physical evidence reveals there were “numerous” apparent bullet holes to the Infiniti’s hood, heavily tinted rear window, and two windshields. There were 22 bullet defects to the red car in total, the report notes.

Nobody else, aside from the 16-year-old boy, sustained gunshot injuries following the exchange. The teenager died the following day in the hospital, the SIU confirmed.

Autopsy results revealed the teen died from four gunshot wounds to the back of his head, noting he also sustained five more wounds below his waist.

While SIU Director Joseph Martino acknowledged the teen suffered these injuries “at the hands of TPS officers” that night, he concluded there are “no reasonable grounds” to believe either officer committed a criminal offence in connection with the 16-year-old’s death.

Though neither of the officers provided firsthand evidence of their mindset the moment they fired their guns, Martino said he is satisfied they did in order “to protect themselves from a reasonably apprehended attack” by the teen.

“It makes sense, on this record, that they would resort to return gunfire to defend themselves,” Martino wrote, as their lives were in immediate peril.

The SIU director also noted his satisfaction with the Toronto officers’ use of “defensive force,” where they collectively fired somewhere between 24 and 27 rounds during the exchange of gunfire.

“The officers had every reason to believe that (the teenager) would continue to fire and, indeed, he did,” Martino wrote. “(The teenager’s) immediate incapacitation was what was needed in the moment if the officers were going to preserve themselves, and nothing short of the stopping power of their firearms carried that potential.”

While the number of shots fired “is worthy of scrutiny,” Martino said it is “noteworthy” the policemen did not fire erratically and as a result, cleared the officers of any wrongdoing.