News Release

News Release

SIU Concludes Toronto Firearm Death Investigation

Case Number: 13-TFD-130   

Mississauga (23 July, 2013) --- The Director of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Ian Scott, has concluded that there are no reasonable grounds to charge a Toronto Police Service officer with any criminal offence in regards to the shooting death of 39-year-old Malcolm Jackman, in June of 2013.

The SIU assigned five investigators and three forensic investigators to probe the circumstances of this incident. As part of the investigation, five witness officers and 10 civilian witnesses were interviewed. The subject officer provided the SIU with a copy of her duty notes and was interviewed by the SIU. 

The SIU investigation found that the following events took place on Saturday, June 8, 2013:
• The subject officer and a witness officer were dispatched to an apartment at 140 Adanac Drive to assist paramedics with an emotionally disturbed person. 
• When they arrived, a man approached the subject officer about Mr. Jackman attacking him at a bus stop with a knife.  (This information regarding Mr. Jackman was not the original reason for the attendance of the emergency responders.) 
• The subject officer went to the apartment’s second floor with her partner and the paramedics, opened the door to the stairwell, and heard a man, now known to be Mr. Jackman talking to himself in the stairwell.. 
• She went down the stairs, and saw Mr. Jackman standing on the main floor area of the stairwell.  She instructed him to show her his hands.  He raised his hands over his head, displaying a knife in his right hand. 
• Both officers drew their firearms and ordered Mr. Jackman to drop the knife.  He shouted at the officers, asking them to shoot him as he paced to the left and the right brandishing the knife. 
• The subject officer discharged pepper spray in the direction of Mr. Jackman’s face but to no effect. 
• Mr. Jackman fled out of the building through the stairwell exit door with the two officers following him. 
• Once outside, the subject officer observed Mr. Jackman holding a civilian with his left arm wrapped around the civilian’s shoulders and his right hand holding the same knife pointed toward that individual’s throat. 
• Both officers commanded Mr. Jackman to drop the knife multiple times while pointing their firearms at him. 
• The subject officer observed Mr. Jackman moving the knife closer to his hostage’s neck, and discharged her firearm four times in his direction. 
• Mr. Jackman fell to the ground.  Another officer approached him and handcuffed his wrists.  He was transported to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre where he later succumbed to his injuries. 
• A post-mortem examination determined that the cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the abdomen.  There were three projectile-related graze wounds, one on his left leg, one near his waist and another on his left arm. 

Director Scott said, “In my view, the subject officer’s use of lethal force was justified in these circumstances.  She had received information that Mr. Jackman had attacked someone with a knife, and had seen him approach her and her partner in a menacing manner with a knife.  She had tried to use a non-lethal use of force option – pepper spray – to no avail.  She then witnessed Mr. Jackman take a stranger hostage with the knife, and refuse to drop that knife after multiple commands.  Finally, she saw him move the knife in a menacing fashion toward the neck of the hostage.  Mr. Jackman represented an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm to the citizen.  Accordingly, I am of the view that she had no reasonable choice but to discharge her firearm to stop this imminent threat to the person who the decedent had taken hostage.”

 

The SIU is an independent government agency that investigates the conduct of officials (police officers as well as special constables with the Niagara Parks Commission and peace officers with the Legislative Protective Service) that may have resulted in death, serious injury, sexual assault and/or the discharge of a firearm at a person. All investigations are conducted by SIU investigators who are civilians. Under the Special Investigations Unit Act, the Director of the SIU must

• consider whether the official has committed a criminal offence in connection with the incident under investigation
• depending on the evidence, cause a criminal charge to be laid against the official where grounds exist for doing so, or close the file without any charges being laid
• publicly report the results of its investigations