Two men were shot and killed, in public, in February. Police know who did it, but they will not tell us. They say no charges should be laid in the case, but they will not tell us why, or give us the information they uncovered in their investigation. Police have security-camera video of the incident, but they will not show it to us.
Two people are dead, and the Toronto Police Service’s response, after four months of investigation, boils down to: Nothing to see here. Trust us. Move along.
But see, that’s not how this whole democracy thing works. That’s not how this whole justice system of ours works. That response from the police doesn’t work.
Here’s what we know: the double shooting happened at a McDonald’s near Danforth and Coxwell, according to a police statement. “The two men became involved in a physical confrontation with an armed uniformed private security officer who was working at a nearby location. During the altercation, the private security officer discharged his firearm, fatally wounding both men. The private security officer was subsequently taken to hospital where he was treated for a firearm-related injury.”
And that’s about all we know. Police have interviewed witnesses and seen video evidence, and have concluded, after consulting with the Crown, that there is “no reasonable prospect of conviction,” and therefore no charges will be laid against the guard. They share that conclusion with us, but will not share any of the logic or evidence that leads them to that conclusion.
“We haven’t charged anyone, so we wouldn’t discuss specifics,” police spokesman Mark Pugash told the Star, citing what he said was a department policy.
As this case illustrates, it’s a policy in desperate need of revision. A longstanding principle of our justice system, often cited by the Supreme Court in its decisions, is that “justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.”
There’s no way to see if justice is being done if the police keep all the evidence and information secret.
Police Chief Mark Saunders says people who want information can just wait to see if the Ontario Coroner decides to hold an inquest. “If that does happen, then that will be the forum where you have the opportunity to hear all of the evidence and have an understanding of why things have concluded the way that they have,” he said, pointing to a possible and theoretical day years down the road.
That response doesn’t really work, either. Police shouldn’t pass the buck to the coroner to disclose basic information. We shouldn’t have to wait years to know whether we can trust what they are saying.
Two people are dead, shot publicly in front of bystanders. No one is going to be held responsible for that. How can we, the people of Toronto, see the justice in that if no one will tell us what happened? Was it a clear-cut case of self-defence? I could imagine a hundred scenarios in which that’s possible, but we don’t know.
Pugash would not confirm or deny even that hypothesis in talking to my colleague Rachel Mendleson yesterday. Why was this security guard armed in a restaurant? We don’t know. What kind of work was he doing nearby? We don’t know. Was his life in danger? Was he being robbed? Was he defending other people?
We don’t know.
And the people who do know refuse to tell us.
If we can’t see justice being done, and evaluate it for ourselves, we cannot be certain injustice isn’t being covered up. If we cannot see the results of the police investigation, we cannot trust its conclusions. Without an explanation for what happened, people are left to wildly speculate.
There are those who think police are likely to be too sympathetic to another uniformed authority figure authorized to carry a gun in a case like this. Who is to say they are misguided, if we have no information?
In 2010, when an independent prosecutor announced that no charges would be pursued against former Attorney-General Michael Bryant for the automotive death of bicycle courier Darcy Alan Sheppard, he outlined a detailed theory of the events of the night and the reasoning behind dropping the case. That decision remains controversial and often lamented, but at least the reasoning is there for all to see and analyze, in both the prosecutor’s statement and a written report.
Even at that, many still feel a courtroom, where the stories and evidence from that investigation could be tested in front of a judge, would be the only place justice could have been done and unresolved questions been answered. That Bryant case looks like an absolute model of disclosure and transparency in comparison to this.
It’s possible to imagine reasons why it might be reasonable to protect the identity of the armed guard in this situation. Although it is possible to imagine more reasons why his name should be public, even if he’s not guilty of anything. After all, without knowing his identity, how can we know if the police in charge of the investigation had any relationship to him that would compromise their objectivity?
But even if protecting his privacy is reasonable, we deserve to know what happened in that McDonald’s. What the witnesses saw. What the cameras captured.
We deserve to know, in part because this incident itself is a matter of significant public interest, in which the public needs to be able to judge the appropriateness of the response by the police and attorneys who represent us.
But also because a policy in which not just the details but the most basic determinations of fact of police investigations are kept secret, and that secrecy is considered routine, is a dangerous policy, ripe for abuse.
Investigators who share only their conclusions, while saying “trust us” when asked how they arrived at those conclusions, do not belong in a democracy. That’s police state stuff. And apparently, it’s standard operating procedure in Toronto.
Author: Edward Keenan
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