Police pursuit justified in fatal road rampage, SIU rules
Ontario's police watchdog says OPP officers did the best they could to stop a speeding, swerving driver who struck and killed an elderly woman east of Napanee, Ont., in March 2018.
Florence Wyatt-Morris, 88, was killed in the head-on crash on County Road 2 east of Baker Side Road on the afternoon of March 6, 2018.
Andrew Slapkauskas, 42, has been charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, flight from police causing death and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.
In its Jan. 28 report on the incident, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) recommends against charging the two officers involved in the chase. SIU director Tony Loparco said the officers didn't have enough time to try tactics such as blocking roads or laying down a spike belt.
"While it is unfortunate that police were unable to stop [Slapkauskas] before the tragic death of [Wyatt-Morris], on all of the evidence, I accept that the two subject officers, and all of the officers who attempted to bring [Slapkauskas] to a stop, used their best efforts in what was a very fast-paced and dynamic situation," Loparco said.
Deadly rampage
The report draws from 32 civilian and police witnesses, and gives new details about the chase, which lasted just over three minutes and covered 5.3 kilometres of rural road.
Police were first called just after 3:30 p.m. by witnesses who saw a grey SUV speeding at 200 km/h past a line of cars at a stop sign. The SUV was heading east toward Napanee.
About 10 minutes later, one of the responding officers reported the SUV's driver, his hands off the steering wheel, had tried to ram his police vehicle at 160 km/h.
"He just tried to hit me head-on on the bridge," the officer said. Seconds later, another officer said, "He's purposely trying to hit people head-on."
A few minutes later, the SUV rammed into Wyatt-Morris's car at about 140 km/h. Wyatt-Morris was pronounced dead at the scene.
Slapkauskas was arrested at gunpoint after a brief struggle with officers, then taken to hospital with a badly fractured arm and other injuries, where he was placed in a medically-induced coma.
Not if, but when
Loparco wrote that the police pursuit was justified in the name of safety.
"Based on the evidence of various witnesses to [Slapkauskas's] driving, it was not a question of if, but when, [he] was going to seriously injure or kill someone," Loparco wrote.
"It was the duty of the police officers to safeguard those communities, which they could not do without stopping [him], which, when all else failed, required a vehicular pursuit."
Ten SIU investigators and crash specialists contributed to the report.
The SIU is called in to investigate when police in Ontario are involved in an incident in which there is a serious injury, death or an allegation of sexual assault.
