The Abdirahman Abdi inquest is being livestreamed during weekdays here. It will resume on Monday, Dec. 9, at 9:30 a.m.
The reinforced gloves used to strike Abdirahman Abdi in the head during his violent police arrest in 2016 were not meant for hitting people, and the small unit of Ottawa officers who received them did not get any training on their intended use before they started using them, the coroner’s inquest into Abdi’s death heard on Friday.
Abdi, 38, was a Somali-Canadian man struggling with mental illness. He was pronounced dead on July 25, 2016, a day after his arrest, sparking outrage in Ottawa and beyond about the tactics used during his arrest.
Const. Daniel Montsion, the officer who punched Abdi, was acquitted of manslaughter in 2020. The gloves, which have plastic knuckles, were a major talking point both before and during his trial, where the Crown argued they were a “weapon of opportunity”: not designed as weapons but used as such.
Years later, they are now back in the spotlight at the inquest, where audio from two interviews conducted by Ontario’s police watchdog — which charged Montsion with manslaughter — were played on Friday.
The interviewee, Sgt. Sandra Sparling — who was a supervisor in the small team of uniformed patrol officers (including Montsion) who helped OPS’s guns and gangs unit — outlined why the gloves were purchased and why they stopped being used after Abdi’s death.
“Because of the optics,” Sparling said in the first interview, held several months after Abdi’s death. “They still have them, but they’re no longer using them for optics reasons.”
Meant to protect knuckles while handling carbine
The coroner’s inquest, which began last month, is not a trial. It’s a fact-finding process meant to empower a jury of five Ottawa civilians to make recommendations for how to avoid deaths like Abdi’s in the future.
Equipment procurement and training are among the areas the inquest is honing in on.
In her first interview, held in January 2017, Sparling told the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) that members of her team would suggest new equipment. In 2015, they were looking to switch to a multi-use type of glove “for all kinds of different tasks.”
Sparling couldn’t remember if she or someone else brought up the gloves, but she had used them while serving in the Canadian military in Afghanistan and said they protected people’s knuckles when using long guns like carbines, which were used by her OPS team members.
The gloves were also useful for protecting officers while searching people, using handcuffs and punching through walls or glass.
“It’s such a small unit that … I didn’t get anybody to sign off on it,” she said.
Sparling said officers were not trained in what the gloves could be used for or how they were supposed to be used.
No other OPS teams used those specific gloves, to her knowledge.
After Abdi’s death, she learned a tactical unit used a similar type of glove, but with leather knuckles.
Use as weapon never contemplated
The SIU investigators re-interviewed Sparling briefly in December 2018.
She was asked if, when she issued the gloves, she ever contemplated the gloves being used as weapons.
“It never even occurred to me,” she said. “I never heard of anybody using those ever as a weapon, not even as a weapon of opportunity.”
Asked again about any training on the gloves, Sparling replied, “No, nothing … It was just a pair of gloves that were going to protect your knuckles.”
During his inquest testimony, Montsion said he never received training or guidance on the gloves, including during his annual use of force training.
He recalled the gloves being purchased because of a steady rise in officers having their hands injured during arrests or training. He himself had broken his hand during an arrest in 2012, and recounted how Abdi tried to bite him.
Montsion told the inquest he understood the gloves stopped being used after he was criminally charged in March 2017.
Recruits are not trained in using hard knuckle gloves at the Ontario Police College, an instructor told the inquest.
How significant the gloves prove to the inquest will only really be known when the jury delivers its recommendations following the end of all testimony.
Two pathologists have concluded a mix of factors contributed to Abdi’s heart failure, including the blows to his head.
One of those pathologists testified on Thursday that, even without reinforced gloves, “you can produce facial trauma.”
Sparling herself could not testify at the inquest for medical reasons, the inquest heard. The Office of the Chief Coroner, which is holding the inquest, obtained the interviews from the SIU via court order.
The inquest continues next week, with an OPS sergeant expected to testify about use of force training.
WATCH / The death of Abdirahman Abdi: Here’s what you need to know:
WARNING: This video contains graphic content | Eight years after Abdirahman Abdi died following a violent struggle with Ottawa police, a coroner’s inquest is bringing the event back into the spotlight. Here’s what you need to know.