LAC SEUL FIRST NATION, Ont. - The province’s Special Investigations Unit has found no wrong doing on the part of an Ontario Provincial Police office in the 2019 death of a Lac Seul First Nation man.
The SIU was contacted on Nov. 19, 2019 after being notified by the OPP that a 38-year-old man was found dead inside a residence near Lac Seul First Nation.
Police were called to the residence on Nov. 18, 2019 just after 4 p.m. after receiving reports of a man barricading himself inside a bedroom and threatening to do himself harm.
A perimeter was set up and the OPP tactical response team was flown in from Southern Ontario. Police remained on the scene until the next morning but were unable to establish communication with the man.
A pole camera was used and the man was observed not moving, so police entered the home and attempted to establish contact with the man who was barricaded inside a bedroom. A short time later the man ended his own life.
A post-mortem examination determined the cause of death to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Throughout the investigation, a subject officer, along with four witness officers and a civilian witness were interviewed.
“Over a five-hour period following the arrival of the SO (Subject Officer), the police pursued various options to establish communication with the Complainant to negotiate the surrender of his firearm and his safe removal from the home,” writes Joseph Martino, director of the SIU, in his report.
The offence that was under consideration as part of this investigation was criminal negligence causing death but Martino found the officers were carrying out lawful duties.
“I am satisfied that the SO, and the members of the TRU team, acted with prudence in not entering the home until they had exhausted all reasonable measures at their disposal to resolve the standoff peacefully and it appeared the Complainant was in medical distress,” Martino writes.
“The SO feared, reasonably in my view, that doing so could provoke a rash response from the Complainant. It was only after several hours and numerous attempts to evince a response from the Complainant to negotiate his safe removal from the home that the SO, fearing that the Complainant might have already acted to end his life, but with hopes that his life could still be saved, sent in the TRU team to intercede.”
"Unfortunately, the Complainant, at the presence of the TRU officers inside the bedroom, acted quickly to bring his life to an end before the police could prevent him doing so."
Martino wrote that the death of the man is a tragedy and the responding officers did what they reasonably could to prevent his death.
"In the final analysis, the record establishes that the SO and the TRU officers acted professionally throughout and did not cause or contribute to the Complainant’s death in any way that could attract criminal sanction," Martino writes.
The SIU is called in to investigate when any incident involving police results in serious injury, death, or allegations of sexual assault.
