Crown appeals cop being cleared of murder; judge called shooting accidental

TORONTO – The Crown is trying to have a decision overturned that cleared a Toronto police officer of murder in the shooting death of a man during a drug and weapon search.

Const. David Cavanagh had been charged with second-degree murder, but a judge last month ruled the death of Eric Osawe was “totally accidental.”

Superior Court Judge Michael Quigley dismissed a Crown appeal of an earlier court decision that also ruled the shooting was accidental.

After a preliminary inquiry earlier this year another judge decided there wasn’t enough evidence to commit Cavanagh to trial and dismissed the case.

The Crown is now appealing the latest decision, having filed their notice of appeal Tuesday with the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

Cavanagh was part of an Emergency Task Force team that burst into Osawe’s west-end Toronto apartment on Sept. 29, 2010, on a search warrant for cocaine and a handgun.

Osawe, 26, was lying on the bed and when he didn’t immediately get to the floor as ordered, Cavanagh took him to the ground, Quigley found.

Osawe struggled with several officers as Cavanagh turned him onto his chest, trying to subdue and handcuff him, and Cavanagh’s MP5 submachine gun went off, Quigley wrote in his decision.

Quigley found the shooting was “entirely unintentional and indeed totally accidental.”

“Mr. Osawe’s death resulted from a tragic but accidental confluence of circumstances that occurred in a high-pressure and high-risk situation within seconds of the police officers entering his apartment,” Quigley wrote.