A Toronto police officer who was driving to a trespassing call last year when he crashed into a civilian vehicle and seriously injured two people has been cleared by the province’s police watchdog, but concerns are being raised about speed to which he was traveling. on the way to the scene.
in a decision Posted on April 19, Ontario Special Investigations Unit Director Joseph Martino concluded there was “no basis” to bring criminal charges against the police officer, identified only as subject officer (SO), following the collision near Bayview and Sheppard Avenues December 23th.
However, Martino noted that there were aspects of the officer’s driving before the accident that could “fairly be characterized as dangerous,” specifically the speed of the patrol car and the fact that the vehicle was going south in the northbound lanes before colliding “violently” with a Toyota Camry.
Emergency crews were called to the scene of the collision at approximately 7:55 p.m. When they arrived, the report states, they found a man and woman with serious injuries. Their two “young” children were also in the vehicle at the time of the accident, but were not seriously injured. The four individuals were removed from the vehicle and taken to the hospital.
The officer, as well as his partner, were not injured in the crash and exited their vehicle to help provide assistance to the Camry’s passengers, the report noted.
What happened?
At 7:50 p.m., the police officer and his partner were parked on Leslie Street north of Finch Avenue when they were dispatched to a home invasion call in North York.
According to the cruiser’s GPS, the officer was recorded traveling at a maximum speed of 136 km/h on Finch Avenue, where the speed limit is 50 km/h. When the officer turned south onto Bayview Avenue, where the speed limit is also 50 km/h, they were recorded at a maximum speed of 125 km/h. The cruise ship’s lights and sirens were on at the time.
As the vehicle headed south on Bayview Avenue, officers encountered heavy traffic and traveled into the left turn lane and eventually into the northbound lanes to get to the scene faster.
The report noted that officers traveled to the scene without incident until they approached the area of Bayview Avenue and Teagarden Court, where a civilian vehicle was attempting to make a U-turn from the southbound lanes to the northbound lanes, a prohibited maneuver. at that moment. intersection, as marked by signage on the nearby elevated center island.
That’s when the patrol car collided with the driver’s side of the Camry, the report states.
Approximately 0.6 seconds before impact, the report states that the police officer had applied the brake pedal and the vehicle slowed from approximately 97 km/h to 79 km/h and the Camry had slowed from approximately 12 km/h to 8 km/h.
This image shows a Toronto Police patrol car that was involved in a collision with a civilian vehicle on December 23, 2023. (SIU)
In his decision, Martino noted that the risks associated with the officer’s speed before the crash were “exacerbated” by the weather, which at the time was wet and rainy.
“I accept that there are aspects of the way the SO operated its cruiser, particularly in the moments leading up to the collision, which could be considered dangerous. Entering a lane of oncoming traffic at high speed as the SO did surely puts public safety at risk. “However, I cannot reasonably conclude that the officer’s conduct deviated markedly from a reasonable standard of care under the circumstances,” Martino wrote.
“Of course, if the SO had reduced its speed as it approached and then passed southbound traffic in the northbound lane, it might have been able to react to plaintiff #1’s vehicle by stopping before a collision . This indiscretion, however, weighed against the mitigating circumstances, does not go so far as to transgress the limits of diligence prescribed by criminal law.”
Martino also noted that police officers are exempt from speed limits while carrying out the “lawful performance” of their duties under the Highway Traffic Act. While the provision does not allow officers to speed “carte blanche,” Martino wrote, it does “reflect a recognition in the law that police will necessarily have to speed at times in the performance of their duties.”