A man accused of fatally running over a Toronto police officer had no intention of killing anyone and behaved reasonably in the face of what he thought was an imminent threat to his family, defense lawyers said Wednesday, while prosecutors argued that deliberately chose to drive dangerously.
The two sides made their final statements to jurors in the trial of Umar Zameer, who pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the detective’s death. Const. Jeffrey Northrup, with lawyers presenting drastically different theories about what happened that night, and the defense accusing the Crown’s key police witnesses of lying.
Jurors will now hear instructions from the judge presiding over the case, who began presenting his charges Wednesday night and plans to continue Thursday.
Northrup, 55, died on July 2, 2021, after being struck by a vehicle in an underground parking lot at Toronto City Hall. The officer and his partner, who were dressed in plain clothes, were investigating a stabbing in which Zameer was not involved.
Zameer did not know that the people who ran toward his car after midnight in an underground parking lot were officers and tried to escape the situation “as safely as possible,” defense attorney Nader Hasan said in his closing arguments.
He also did not know that Northrup had fallen to the ground and could not see him in front of his vehicle because the officer was in the vehicle’s blind spot, Hasan said.
“We all agree that this was a tragedy. It was not a criminal act,” said the defense lawyer.
“I urge you not to conflate tragedy with injustice,” he continued. “Sir. Zameer is not a criminal. He is a husband, a father who was trying to escape from what he believed to be imminent danger. … ‘Not guilty’ is the only fair verdict here.”
Hasan said Zameer’s account is corroborated by, among other things, security footage, physical evidence and the testimony of two accident reconstruction experts, one of whom testified on behalf of the Crown.
On the other hand, the Crown’s key witnesses, three officers who witnessed the incident, repeatedly lied and colluded with each other, the defense lawyer claimed.
Prosecutors don’t have a murder case unless jurors believe the three officers and “ignore the evidence of almost everyone else,” he said.
Hasan also argued that the Crown could not address the “elephant in the room,” one of the central issues in the case.
“Why would Mr. Zameer, an accountant in his 30s, a family man who had never been in trouble before, who was with his young family to celebrate Canada Day, why would he suddenly intend to kill or cause harm to a person? Police officer? Not to mention the fact that he is in his car with his eight-month pregnant wife and his two-year-old son,” he said.
The Crown argued that while the three officers were wrong about where Northrup was when he was hit, they were correct that he was standing and that Zameer drove directly toward him. Instead of in the alley, as officers recalled and where he would have been captured on security footage, it happened out of view of the camera, the Crown suggested.
Prosecutor Karen Simone argued that the officers had nothing to gain by lying and that each had different views on the incident. They combined the location where Northrup was hit and where he was ultimately run over, which appears in the video, she said.
Northrup’s partner, Det. Const. Lisa Forbes testified that they both identified themselves as police officers during their interaction with Zameer, and Zameer’s wife testified that she saw Forbes wearing a badge but thought it was fake, Simone said.
At more than six feet tall and nearly 300 pounds, Northrup was “huge and visible,” and anyone who hit someone that size could see and feel it, he said, arguing that Zameer “knew he was running over a person. “
If jurors are not convinced that Zameer knew Northrup was a police officer and that the impact occurred while Northrup was standing directly in front of the vehicle, they should acquit him of first-degree murder, Simone said. In that case, she said the jury should find him guilty of manslaughter by dangerous driving.
“He made a series of complex decisions, individually and collectively, that departed markedly from the standard of care that a reasonable person would have observed in his situation. In the end, his collective and deliberate decisions had fatal consequences and were objectively foreseeable,” he stated.
While Zameer had the right to leave, he decided to drive dangerously knowing there were people nearby, he added. Even if jurors believe Zameer was scared, “he was still a perceived threat and not a rational one: no weapons, no real threats,” and his response was disproportionate, he said. He also didn’t stop after hitting Northrup, he said.
The court heard Zameer’s car initially moved forward from its parking spot but was blocked by an unmarked police van. He then reversed and tilted his car, stopped and drove straight down the alley toward the exit.
Zameer has testified that he did not know that Northrup and his partner, who were in plainclothes, were police officers and became frightened when two strangers ran toward his car in the nearly empty parking lot shortly after midnight. He said he closed the doors and the two people began hitting the car.
He told the court he was trying to drive away quickly to save his family from what he believed were robbers and that he didn’t see anything in front of his car or realize he had hit anyone until after his arrest. Both he and his wife testified that they thought they had hit a roadblock.
Three police officers who witnessed the incident (Forbes and two officers who were in the van) testified that Northrup was standing in the middle of the street in front of the car with his hands outstretched when he was hit. The two in the truck, officers Antonio Correa and Scharnil Pais, said Northrup fell on the hood and then slipped.
However, two accident reconstruction experts, one of them called by the Crown, told the court they had concluded that Northrup was hit after the car grazed him while reversing, and that he was already in the ground when he ran over him while advancing.
The expert called by the defense said Northrup would not have been visible to Zameer when he was on the ground because he was in the blind zone of the car. He also noted that there was no damage to the hood or front of the car, something he would expect to see if a man of Northrup’s stature had been hit head-on.
The court also viewed security footage from the parking lot showing an unidentified object believed to be Northrup appear on the ground in front of the car as it moves down the lane. Northrup cannot be seen at any other point in the video.
A pillar partially blocks the camera view to the left, obscuring some of the earlier parts of the encounter, but there is a clear shot of the alley.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 17, 2024.