Family of Durham police shooting victim says 911 call reveals discrepancies
Michael MacIsaac was shot dead in December 2013 as he ran naked through his Ajax neighbourhood
The family of a man shot dead by Durham police more than two years ago wants answers after obtaining the 911 call from the time of the shooting that they say reveals discrepancies in officers' statements about that day.
- Family still seeks answers in police shooting death of Ajax man
- Michael MacIsaac's family wants SIU probe reopened
Michael MacIsaac died on Dec. 2, 2013 after running naked through his neighbourhood brandishing a table leg. Saturday would have been his 50th birthday.
His family believes that he suffered a seizure before bolting from his home.
The 911 call obtained by the family via a freedom of information request covers the time between the officer's arrival at the scene and the moment he fired two shots at MacIsaac.
The man who called 911 was driving his pick-up truck in the area when he spotted MacIsaac and followed him.
On the tape of the call, the witness tells both the dispatcher and the first officer who arrived that MacIsaac has a weapon: "He's got a table in his hand," he says.
The officer tells him to "pull back."
Six seconds later, the witness responds to shots being fired.
"Oh god," the man says, and the dispatcher tries to calm him down.
The officer's notes about the incident say that when he first spotted MacIsaac he was "waving a metal pole."
Witnesses at the scene later told CBC News said the man was holding a patio table leg.
"The male held the pole as if he was preparing the walk to the plate in a baseball game," the officer wrote. "The male was screaming 'Come on, come on.' I feared for my safety and drew my service issued Glock."
The officer pointed his gun at MacIsaac and "issued the police challenge: 'police, don't move.'"
The officer ordered MacIsaac to drop the weapon and get on the ground, but MacIsaac continued moving toward him, he wrote, and "I felt the threat to my safety was imminent as the male was moving closer."
That's when the officer fired his weapon.
Reports from the two officers who arrived at the scene in time to see the shots fired matched the first officer's description of events.
The province's Special Investigations Unit, which probes police interactions with the public that result in injury or death, found there weren't any grounds to lay charges. The Office of the Independent Police Review Director, which investigates complaints, also cleared the officer of wrongdoing.
'I'm surprised'
MacIsaac's family has long disputed the SIU's findings, and went so far as to hire a private investigator and run their own probe into the case.
His sister, Joanne MacIsaac, questioned how the two other responding officers could corroborate the first officer's story when it is her understanding that they arrived just in time to see her brother shot.
"So I'm surprised they have so much detail about what happened," she told CBC News on Friday.
MacIsaac and her mother, Yvonne, also repeated their previous claims that police made no attempt to de-escalate the situation. The family also previously said they believe MacIsaac was farther away from police at the time of the shooting than investigators claimed.
MacIsaac developed epilepsy following a childhood head injury, his family says, and would suffer seizures when he got sick. His sister says MacIsaac was running a fever that day and his wife told her that he had a seizure that morning.
His behaviour was uncharacteristic, Joanne said, and she questioned why the first officer moved toward her brother rather than waiting for the other two officers to arrive, and then fired at her brother.
"It says that there was no attempt to de-escalate," she said. "Why get out and walk towards a threat?"
She also questioned why the officer can't be heard on the 911 tape issuing commands to MacIsaac before the shots are fired.
The family plans to write to the SIU demanding answers to its questions about the 911 tape.
The SIU did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Peter Rosenthal, one of the lawyers for the MacIsaac family, said he intends to take some of the information about the case that the family has compiled "and go back to the SIU and reconsider the possibility of laying criminal charges against the officers."
Rosenthal said it's rare for the SIU to reconsider a decision.
However, an inquest is anticipated in this case, he said.
The coroner's act calls for a mandatory inquest when someone dies in police custody or when they have been detained by police.
"Now the coroners have sometimes taken the position that 'detained by' didn't occur even when the police killed somebody," Rosenthal said. "In my view, killing somebody is the strongest possible way of detaining him."