After a four-month investigation into a police shooting in Westboro, Ontario’s police watchdog concluded the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) officer did not commit a crime when he shot a woman holding a firearm in March.
Director Joseph Martino of Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) wrote in his report that the officer was attempting to protect himself from a “reasonably apprehended attack” because the woman involved was turning toward the officer with a loaded firearm.
The SIU investigates incidents involving police in Ontario where there’s been death, serious injury or sexual assault, or if shots have been fired.
“The officer could only have surmised that his life was in danger at that moment and that defensive force was necessary to preserve himself,” Martino wrote.
On the afternoon of March 22, an Ottawa police officer attempted to pull over an Audi vehicle with “excessive” tint on its windows and an out-of-province license plate, according to the report. Instead of stopping, the 25-year-old female driver sped up.
The director wrote the woman “effectively destroyed her tires” by driving over rocks while being pursued by police, but reached the intersection of Avondale Avenue and Tweedsmuir Avenue in Westboro, where she exited the car carrying a loaded Smith & Wesson handgun.
When the officer pursued her on foot and repeatedly asked her to drop the weapon, she did not comply and turned to face the officer, reads the report.
One resident told CBC back in March that a stray bullet struck her window during the confrontation. Her husband was home in the basement, when he heard “pop, pop, pop” and came upstairs to broken glass. A bullet was left behind in their driveway.
The director noted that there were varying accounts of what the woman did just before she was shot.
Some suggested she pointed her gun at the officer, others say she fell into the road, and still others say she was stumbling forward and rotated in the officer’s direction, fully or partially.
Martino wrote despite the differences, he is “satisfied” the officer “was justified in his conduct” because all accounts agree the woman was turning or turned with the gun in the officer’s direction.
The 25-year-old woman was taken to the hopsital in critical condition after the incident. The SIU report did not include any details about her health citing the Personal Health Information Protection Act.