Investigators examine a scene on County Road 17 in Kawartha Lakes, Ont., on Nov. 27, 2020. The union representing Ontario Provincial Police officers says charges have been dropped against three of its members who had been accused in the case of a fatal shooting that killed an 18-month-old boy.Fred Thornhill/The Canadian Press
The Crown withdrew manslaughter charges against three Ontario Provincial Police officers in connection with the November, 2020, shooting death of an abducted toddler after prosecutors were allowed to review the officers’ notebooks recounting what happened.
William Shapiro and his 18-month-old son Jameson both died after a police confrontation in Kawartha Lakes, located east of Toronto near Oshawa. Officers who responded to a 911 call chased the suspect’s speeding pickup truck, which hit one of the officers who was setting down a spike belt. Three OPP officers fired more than 40 bullets, killing Mr. Shapiro and his son.
The province’s Special Investigations Unit, which investigates police officers in cases involving death or serious injury, charged Constables Nathan Vanderheyden, Kenneth Pengelly and Grayson Cappus in 2022 with manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death.
But Crown attorney Ian Bulmer told the Ontario Court of Justice in Oshawa on Monday that his office decided to withdraw the charges after recently gaining access to the officers’ notebooks, which he said showed the officers had ample reason to fear for their lives. The officers wrote that Mr. Shapiro refused to drop the handgun he was brandishing.
“Assuming that the defendants were to testify consistently with their notes, if they reasonably believed that William Shapiro was about to shoot his firearm at the officers who were proximate to the vehicle – there is no question that their shots were responsive to the threat,” he said.
The notebooks surfaced early this year after defence lawyers agreed to hand them over during a preliminary inquiry, which predates a criminal trial. Under Ontario law, only the police officers can decide whether to hand over their notes to the SIU or prosecutors.
Evidence presented at the preliminary inquiry was covered by a publication ban that was lifted once the charges were withdrawn, including an agreed statement of facts filed with the court.
Mr. Shapiro was in the grips of a drugs and mental health crisis when he showed up at his estranged wife’s home at 3 a.m. brandishing a handgun and talking about killing people, and himself. The boy’s mother fled and Mr. Shapiro took Jameson.
Police were called around 9 a.m. By that point the father had placed the boy in his lap, unseatbelted, in a speeding Toyota Tundra. The 3,200 kilogram pickup truck was travelling 170 kilometres an hour on country road when it struck a police officer who had been laying down a spike belt. Prosecutors told court the impact was “catastrophic” but the officer survived.
Other officers who saw their injured colleague surrounded the speeding truck as it stopped and got close enough to bash its windows. But the truck’s air bags deployed, obscuring their view of what was happening in the driver’s seat.
According to officer notes, police told Mr. Shapiro to drop his handgun, but instead he waved it around and shouted obscenities. Three officers responded by firing their weapons. “Forensic pathology establishes that Jameson Shapiro survived the collision and suffered four gunshot wounds – the most medically significant of which entered the back of the base of his skull,” said Mr. Bulmer, the prosecutor, in court.
There was no evidence the child’s father, who died a week later, fired that fatal bullet. Court heard that Mr. Shapiro had likely tried to fire his weapon, but it jammed.
Defence lawyer Harry Black, who represented Constable Cappus, said the officers “did everything in accordance with their training. They did everything in accordance with the law.”
Police officers frequently refuse to participate in interviews with oversight agencies or share their notes. The Globe and Mail reported last year that officers in Ontario refused to participate in 40 per cent of cases handled by the SIU from 2018 to 2022, and only fully co-operated 25 per cent of the time. In Ontario, provincial laws prohibit anyone other than the officers from turning over their notes.
Mr. Black, the defence lawyer, said he almost never advises any officers who are subjects of investigation to give their notebooks to the SIU. “It’s simply because they they have the right to remain silent and have the Crown prove its case against them,” he said.
On Monday, the SIU issued a statement saying that it had no legal recourse to the officers’ notebooks. “The Crown noted in court today that their decision [to withdraw] was based on information not in the hands of the SIU at the time of its investigation,” said Monica Hudon. She added that “the officers had not interviewed with the SIU or authorized the release of their notes to the SIU.”
Colin Freeze