Peel police association blasts SIU head over 'inciteful' comments

The president of Peel Regional Police Association has called some comments that the head of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) made in his report into a 2014 shooting "inciteful and inflammatory."

Jermaine Carby, 33, was shot three times on Sept. 25 after being pulled over at Queen Street and Kennedy Road in Brampton.

• SIU clears Peel officer in 2014 traffic stop shooting of Jermaine Carby
• ​Jermaine Carby's family wants answers in traffic stop death

In his report, Tony Loparco, the director of the SIU, said the officer was justified in using force to defend himself but he also questioned why an officer who arrived on the scene after the shooting took the knife away.

"This conduct is hard to fathom," Loparco said.

In a strongly worded statement, Paul Black wrote: "Using the word 'tampering' to describe events surrounding the knife, leads one to believe that police had sinister motives. It is, quite simply, unacceptable for you to make such an inappropriate and inaccurate statement.

"Like a gun properly seized from the subject officer, the knife was seized in good faith, was correctly bagged for forensic purposes, was properly turned over to a Supervisor for safekeeping, and in due course turned over to SIU forensic investigators," Black said.

Ian Scott, a former director of the SIU, told Metro Morning there is no reasonable explanation as to why the knife was removed from the scene.

"(That's) a direct breach of SIU regulations under the Police Services Act which says very, very clearly that in circumstances like this, the scene is supposed to be frozen so that the forensic investigators can come and document that scene, usually with photographs and sometimes with video. That clearly was not done in these circumstances.

"It's an outright breach of the Police Services Act," he told Metro Morning host Matt Galloway.

While Black commended the SIU for clearing the officer of any wrongdoing, he questioned "the unwarranted comment concerning our subject officer not speaking with SIU investigators," saying that "it is strictly his constitutional right, and  a process being directed by legal counsel.

"Comments such as this also suggest there are ulterior motives, when in fact you had independent and convincing evidence that the Officer's actions were legally justified," Black said.

Scott says Loparco "did the best he could in the circumstances, which is analyze the evidence he had and bring to the public's attention that there was a major breach of the SIU regulations under the Police Services Act."