What the jury didn’t hear in the trial of a man accused of killing a Toronto officer

TORONTO – Jurors have begun deliberations in the trial of Umar Zameer, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of a Toronto police detective. Const. Jeffrey Northrup.

The officer, who was dressed in plain clothes, died on July 2, 2021, after being struck by a vehicle in an underground parking lot at Toronto City Hall.

Prosecutors said Zameer made deliberate decisions to drive dangerously while people were nearby, which killed the officer. But the defense argued that Zameer had no intention of killing anyone and believed two strangers who ran toward his car were an imminent threat to his family.

Unbeknownst to the jury, the judge who oversaw the trial repeatedly expressed concern about the prosecution’s shifting theory about what happened the night the officer died, and the Crown eventually abandoned one of the alternative theories it planned to present in their final arguments. The theory that Northrup was “clearly visible” to Zameer when he was hit regardless of his position, which itself is in dispute, was abandoned after the judge said he was struggling to understand it.

Here are some other things jurors didn’t hear about the case:

Bail judge ruled prosecutor had ‘weak’ case for murder

Zameer was released on bail in the fall of 2021, but the reasons for his release and the evidence and arguments presented in court could not be revealed until now. Much of the evidence, including Zameer’s account of what happened, emerged at trial, but the judge’s reasons for bail did not.

When determining whether to release someone on bail, judges must consider whether that person could flee to avoid prosecution, whether they pose a threat to public safety and whether their release would erode public confidence in the justice system.

In her ruling, Ontario Superior Court Justice Jill Copeland, who is now a Court of Appeal judge, said the risks related to flying and public safety could be mitigated by Zameer’s supervision plan and a driving ban. . As for public trust, she said the evidence is based on an informed member of the public, meaning someone who knows the facts of the case.

Copeland concluded that the prosecution’s murder case was “weak” and that its theory of liability did not “objectively consider all of the evidence available at this time.” He specifically pointed to the absence of evidence about a motive as a “significant weakness” in proving that Zameer intended to kill.

“The Crown’s theory – that Mr. Zameer, who the evidence supports, was out for a normal family evening with his pregnant wife and young son, that he has no criminal record, that he has a good work and educational history, suddenly decided to kill or kill intentionally. “Causing bodily harm that he knew could cause death to a police officer flies in the face of logic and common sense,” the judge wrote.

He found the Crown had a “reasonably strong” manslaughter case, but not “overwhelming.” Even if jurors did not believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Zameer committed murder, they would have to decide whether his driving was unreasonable to the point of criminally negligent manslaughter, he wrote.

Judges assess the strength of the Crown’s case at the bail stage only as it relates to the criteria for release. They may not have access to all of the evidence that will be available at trial, and the evidence they do have is not tested in the same way as it is at trial.

The judge’s instructions on possible police collusion

Northrup’s partner, then-Det. Const. Lisa Forbes and two officers who were at the scene in an unmarked police van, Officers Scharnil Pais and Antonio Correa, testified that they saw Northrup standing in the middle of the street with his hands up when he was hit.

There is no evidence of when Forbes wrote his notes about the incident, but País and Correa told the court they wrote theirs on August 4, more than a month later. The court heard that the three gave statements to police at various times on July 2, and Pais and Correa took a tour of the garage together on July 20. All of the officers have maintained that they did not discuss their evidence with anyone.

One of the agents who arrived at the scene during Zameer’s arrest testified that he, Pais, Correa and two other agents wrote their notes at the same time, in the same room. Forbes was not present.

In the jury’s absence, lawyers discussed a section of Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy’s proposed directions that address the possibility of collusion among officials.

Prosecutor Karen Simone asked Molloy to make a distinction for Forbes, since the officer was not part of what the judge called the “note-taking party” or tour of the garage. Simone noted that Forbes gave her statement on body camera 17 minutes after calling 911, before seeing Pais and Correa again and before the two officers gave their statements to police.

Such a distinction would allow the jury to evaluate Forbes’ credibility and trustworthiness independently of the other two officials, he argued.

But Molloy said he couldn’t draw that line because if there was collusion, it occurred after Forbes’ version of events was released.

“She has given a version of events that did not happen, and now two other agents somehow have the same version. “That is strange,” the judge said.

“To say that she gave a statement at the time, and that she gave a statement at the hospital, and that she gave a statement at the (police) station just means that she gave a lot of statements, and a lot of people know what her side is.”

The judge noted that her proposed jury instructions did not suggest how the officers arrived at the same version of events, but that she also “cannot not tell them that they have to consider collusion.”

“(And) I can’t tell you, ‘but Officer Forbes wasn’t part of this,’ because I don’t know,” he added.

The expert’s outburst

At one point, the Crown considered suggesting to jurors that an accident reconstruction expert called by the defense might have had a biased opinion after lashing out during cross-examination.

Barry Raftery aggressively accused the Crown of misleading the jury and was reprimanded by the judge for his tone. Molloy later told jurors that prosecutors had not been misleading.

During legal arguments in the absence of the jury, Molloy acknowledged that Raftery was “angry and hostile” during the exchange, and said that if prosecutors planned to raise the possibility of bias, she would instruct the jury on that issue.

However, the judge said she would also have to include the broader context of the outbreak. She noted that Raftery’s testimony “got off on a very bad foot” after the Crown accused him of being criticized for his testimony in another case, which turned out to be untrue, and did not give him a chance to respond. The judge told the jury at the time that this was a mistake and that the court had not faulted Raftery in that case.

In the end, Simone said she would highlight areas of Raftery’s evidence that the Crown believes are “problematic” in her closing submissions to the jury without suggesting the expert was biased or referring to what she called his “very inappropriate and unprofessional outburst.” in the Tribunal”. “

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 18, 2024.