Officer who shot Babak Saidi tells inquest he was afraid for his life
Police watchdog found no reasonable grounds to lay charges
The constable who shot and killed Babak Saidi outside the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) detachment in Morrisburg, Ont., told a coroner's inquest Wednesday he feared for his life when Saidi took his Taser during the attempted arrest in 2017.
Luc Sarao, who is now a detective constable with the street crime unit, said he'd only heard of Saidi the morning of Dec. 23, 2017, when colleagues working a holiday schedule mentioned that Saidi could be unpredictable.
They learned by email that two officers would attempt to arrest Saidi during his weekly, mandatory check-in at the detachment because of allegations he'd threatened a women with a knife.
During the struggle that ensued in that arrest, Sarao shot Saidi five times at close range.
Ontario's police watchdog investigated and found there were no reasonable grounds to lay criminal charges against Sarao.
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The inquest is looking for recommendations to improve police responses to people who may be violent or be suffering from mental illness.
Arrest planned day of, constables say
Sarao said he and Const. Meghan Shay, the other officer who was involved in the arrest, had formulated their plan in the moments after they both arrived at the detachment. They'd read relevant files on Saidi in the police computer system earlier that morning.
Both officers said they had not been specifically assigned to the task.
Sarao said their plan was for it to seem like a "natural" sign-in for Saidi, in an attempt to avoid the situation escalating, and they would inform him of his arrest rather than trying to physically control him first.
While there was some discrepancy in both constables' testimony about who spoke first, Sarao said he did inform Saidi he was under arrest and instructed him to turn around.
In both constables' testimony, Saidi became defensive, but each said he calmed down when they told him neither was the lead investigator on the file and there was a process that needed to happen.
But before he was handcuffed, Saidi said something about telling his father and made his way from the office to the lobby.
Then the arrest began to escalate, the constables told the inquest.
Officer concerns over leaving building
While they would later learn Saidi's father was waiting outside with a neighbour in a car after dropping Saidi off, the inquest heard neither officer was certain who was in the vehicle and were concerned by the potential new threat.
Sarao said he tried to control Saidi by grabbing his left arm inside the lobby, but the two ended up crashing through the door and the struggle on the ground outside rapidly escalated.
He said Saidi bit his arm through two layers of clothing, so Sarao delivered three punches to the back of Saidi's head to get him loose. While Sarao was able to get on top, he said the pair of officers were concerned Saidi was grabbing for their guns.
"At that point, I have zero control on this man, he feels extremely strong and it's not going well," Sarao said.
He said Saidi grabbed the radio off his vest and struck him above his left eye and since Saidi had become assaultive, he resorted to his conducted-energy weapon, a Taser X2.
Because they were too close, Sarao said he had to try to incapacitate him by first firing the prongs at him and shocking him at a third point with the Taser itself. But when he fired it, he also felt the electrical charge.
Shay also testified to feeling a shock and breaking the wire because one of the prongs had caught on her sleeve.
Sarao said Saidi wrestled the Taser away by rolling onto his belly, raising the concern that he could use the second cartridge in the Taser against the officers.
Sarao said Saidi's assaultive behaviour had become a threat on his life at that point. He said as he drew his weapon Saidi rose off his back and swung the Taser back at him and touched his gun — that's when Sarao fired his first shots.
"I was fearful for my life," he told the inquest.
Even after being shot in the right arm and left thigh, Saidi was able to grab onto an unzipped open pocket on the front of Sarao's vest where he kept a pocketknife, so the officer fired three more times, he said.
Difficult to train for feeling you could die, officer says
Sarao, who served 10 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, including tours in Afghanistan, and had three years experience as an OPP officer at that point, said that was the first time he'd fired his gun on someone.
Sarao, like Shay, opened his testimony with an apology to the Saidi family, though he also acknowledged there was little he could say that would make a difference.
In his testimony, Sarao agreed more officers may have been able to get better control of Saidi during the arrest, but at the time he'd felt he and Shay could handle it.
More information to make decisions could also be useful to officers, he said. Flags for violent and unpredictable behaviour are common in the police database and he said something "above and beyond" might need to be considered.
Earlier Wednesday, Shay said she had concerns about an arrest plan with only two officers after being involved in a failed plan to arrest Saidi at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that had involved four.
She said she felt reassured when she saw reports where Saidi cooperated with a single officer to come into custody, but added it may have been "naive" in retrospect.
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Shay said she had difficulty remembering large portions of the incident and described getting "tunnel vision."
She said while police training attempts to prepare officers for high stress, it's difficult for trainers to prepare someone for feeling like they could die, their partner could die and the public could be at risk.