No charges laid against officers who killed 1 man, injured another during Markham home invasion investigation
Ontario's police watchdog won't lay charges against two York Regional Police officers who shot a pair of 23-year-old men in Markham late last year, killing one and seriously injuring the other.
Joseph Martino, director of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), found no reasonable grounds to believe the officers committed a criminal offence on Nov. 25, the SIU said in a press release Saturday.
The two undercover officers were inside a pickup truck surveilling an SUV believed to be connected to a series of home invasions when two men exited the vehicle and confronted the officers, the SIU said.
One man pointed a loaded shotgun at one officer's head while the other was armed with a knife, the investigation found.
According to the SIU, the officers then began firing at the two men, killing the man with the knife and seriously injuring the other.
"I am satisfied that [the two officers] were acting to defend themselves, each other, and, in the latter stages of the exchange, other officers, from a reasonably apprehended assault at the time of the gunfire," Martino concluded.
The SIU is an independent civilian agency that's called in to investigate reports involving police where there has been death, serious injury or an allegation of sexual assault.
The full SIU report can be accessed here.
