The province’s police watchdog decided not to charge a police officer in connection with the fatal shooting of a 35-year-old man in Markham last year, despite some unanswered questions about the circumstances surrounding the incident. , including what led the officer to engage with the man in the first place.
Special Investigations Unit (SIU) director Joseph Martino said in a report released Wednesday that he found no reasonable grounds to bring charges against the York Regional Police (YRP) officer who shot and killed Moses Erhirhie in the parking lot of a shopping plaza at Fairburn Drive and Highway 7 on the evening of January 21, 2022.
In his analysis, Martino admitted that “there is a lot about this incident that is still unknown,” including why the officer interacted with Erhirhie in the first place. The SIU said the officer, named in the report as the subject officer (SO), refused to be interviewed for the investigation and did not provide notes as his legal right.
Martino also raised several questions about the circumstances surrounding the officer’s actions, such as why he tried to arrest Erhihie, who is referred to in the report as the whistleblower.
“The answers to these questions are important. If the SO did not have a legal reason to arrest or detain the Complainant, then the Complainant had the right to resist that process. However, in the absence of any evidence to this effect, and in circumstances that suggest a plausible scenario in which the officer was in the legitimate performance of his duties, the investigation does not lead to a reasonably well-founded belief that the OS was acting outside the scope of his legal authority,” Martino wrote.
“Ultimately, given the speed with which events unfolded and the volatility of the situation, I cannot reasonably conclude that the SO acted without justification to decide on the spur of the moment to face a threat of serious bodily injury or death. with recourse to one’s own lethal force”.
FULL REPORT: SIU wraps up investigation into police-involved shooting death of Moses Erhirhie in Markham
Using evidence the SIU collected from YRP, video from a nearby business, and cell phone recording from a civilian witness, Martino provided a timeline of what transpired between the officer and Erhirhie.
It started around 9:15 p.m. when Erhirhie pulled into the parking lot in a white Hyundai Elantra. She stopped by a snow bank in the southeast corner. The SIU said he was with a woman who was in the front passenger seat.
Erhirhie got out of the vehicle and walked to the passenger side and appeared to urinate on the snow bank, the SIU said.
He was on his feet for 25 seconds before a marked police SUV pulled up and stopped near his vehicle. The SIU noted that the lone officer in the SUV had been patrolling parking lots before arriving in that area.
The SIU said Erhirhie approached the police cruiser and appeared to be in some sort of conversation with the officer. A short time later, the officer got out of his patrol car and approached Erhirhie’s vehicle. He then followed the officer and stood by the rear tire.
The two then talked to each other for about two minutes until Erhirhie reached for the driver’s door handle and tried to get back in, the SIU said.
The officer immediately intervened, the SIU said, adding that the two quarreled for several seconds. Erhirhie was able to break free and run away. The officer followed him as he circled a parked vehicle and returned to his vehicle.
The SIU said Erhirhie finally managed to get into the driver’s seat, but the officer was able to reach out and grab him.
“The officer attempted to remove the complainant from the Hyundai even as the vehicle began to slowly back up. It had retraced approximately three feet when it came to a momentary stop before accelerating in a northwesterly arc past the crossroads and up the snow bank,” the SIU said.
The Hyundai came to a stop on a slope above the snowbank. Seconds later, the passenger got out of the vehicle. With the driver’s door still open, the officer got out of the car, stepped back, and fired his weapon “once, probably as many as three times” at Erhirhie.
“It appeared that Plaintiff was attempting to exit the Hyundai through the open front passenger door when he was struck by one or more of the shots and collapsed, his head resting on the front passenger seat and his feet on the front passenger seat. of the driver”. the SIU said.
The officer then moved to the passenger side with his gun pointed at the door. The SIU said he remained in that position for approximately two minutes until other officers arrived on the scene.
Four minutes had passed since the shots were fired before officers removed Erhirhie from the vehicle and performed CPR on her. He was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The SIU said an autopsy revealed the cause of death to be “gunshot wounds to the torso.”
The agency said police located a Glock Model 23 in a bag Erhirhie was carrying. It was delivered to the SIU along with a loaded 11-round magazine and a single cartridge.
“While the SIU does not have firsthand knowledge of the officer’s mindset when he fired his weapon, it seems likely that the SO shot the complainant who was attempting to defend himself against a reasonably apprehended attack,” Martino wrote in his analysis. “That is the significance of the statements the SO made to certain officers who arrived after the shooting, namely that he fired his weapon believing he was about to be killed by the Hyundai in Claimant’s control, and there is nothing in the evidence to contradict that.”
He said the video evidence appears to verify the claims. Martino posited that Erhirhie was desperate to flee as he was in possession of a loaded gun, which the officer was unaware of at the time.
“While he may not have intended to injure or assault the SO, Plaintiff’s frantic efforts to escape arrest in his vehicle gave the officer reason to believe his life was in imminent danger,” he wrote.
“On this record, it would appear that the OS had reason to want to stop the movement of the Hyundai and, once stopped, prevent it from moving again, by discharging its weapon to incapacitate Claimant.”
Martino added that while the officer could have deployed a Taser to reduce tension, “nothing stood to immediately immobilize the complainant like the use of a firearm, especially in light of the officer’s precarious position at the time.” .