The province’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has cleared police of wrongdoing in an incident in which a man shot himself in Penetanguishene in August.
On Aug. 31, 2023, a 36-year-old man was “grievously wounded when he shot himself in the head with a semi-automatic pistol,” the SIU stated in its report on the incident.
At 9:15 a.m. that day, the Halton Regional Police Service asked for the assistance of Southern Georgian Bay OPP to execute warrants near Robert Street and Fuller Avenue in Penetanguishene. The OPP Tactics and Rescue Unit (TRU) was requested to attend the scene “due to the particulars of the (suspect’s) violent history with weapons,” but the unit was not immediately available.
At about 2:22 p.m., three people exited an RV, but the suspect barricaded himself inside. The SIU said he was “contemplating suicide and in possession of a firearm.”
Shortly before 6 p.m., TRU members took over the scene and “struggled to maintain communication” with the man.
Power to the RV was shut off at about 7:30 p.m. Forty minutes later, negotiators gave the man five minutes to surrender, but he “expressly refused to do so,” the SIU report states.
“He warned police not to enter the RV or he would kill himself. At one point, he asked why the officers were taking so long to enter; it seemed he was waiting for that to happen in order to take his life. As the evening wore on, the (suspect), who had admitted to consuming crack cocaine, began to make less and less sense. Negotiations had effectively stalled.”
At 9:17 p.m., police deployed pepper spray into the RV. Three minutes later, the man exited the vehicle “with a handgun in his left hand and pointed to the side of his head while screaming,” the SIU report states.
“(He) screamed indiscernibly for several seconds and then discharged his weapon. At about the same time, one of the TRU officers … fired his ARWEN (anti-riot weapon enfield) twice, and another … released his police dog.”
The suspect “dropped to the ground with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.”
Paramedics were called to the scene and took the man to Georgian Bay General Hospital in Midland with a police escort. The man was then transferred to St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.
He died when he was taken off life support on Sept. 4.
“On his assessment of the evidence, SIU director Joseph Martino determined there were no reasonable grounds to believe that the officer in charge of police operations committed a criminal offence in connection with the man’s death,” the SIU concluded.
