Be vague about how many times you shoot, officers in SIU probes told

by Tracey Tyler
Toronto Star
Sep. 08, 2011

Officers under investigation for shooting civilians should be vague about how many times they fired their guns, a police lawyer recommends.

Most people who shoot at armed suspects are unsure how many times they fired and officers must allow themselves some margin of error so their accounts stand up with investigators, Gary Clewley advised in a Hamilton Police Association newsletter in 2009.

In that same newsletter, the Ontario Court of Appeal was told Wednesday, Clewley suggested how officers might explain a shooting in their notes or reports to the Special Investigations Unit, the independent civilian agency charged with probing the use of deadly force by police.

“The obvious needs to be said again and again,” the lawyer wrote. “ ‘He pointed the firearm at me and, fearing for my life and the life and safety of my fellow officers and members of the public, I fired at him several times.’ ”

Police in Ontario often prepare two sets of notes after a shooting — one for their lawyer and another version for public consumption, the court was told Wednesday, with officers commonly instructed not to write up anything for the SIU without speaking to a police association lawyer first.

The problem, argues SIU director Ian Scott, is that it becomes impossible to know whether an officer’s notes are a truly independent recollection of what happened.

“It’s a stunning situation that police officers being investigated for the death of a citizen keep two sets of notes,” said Julian Falconer, a lawyer representing the families of Douglas Minty and Levi Schaeffer, mentally ill men shot dead by Ontario Provincial Police two days apart in June 2009.

“Nowhere else in our justice system does that happen.”

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