SIU clears OPP officer in connection with police-involved shooting in Seaforth

The province’s police watchdog has cleared an OPP officer in connection with a police-involved shooting that left two people injured last October in Seaforth, Ont.

Back on October 18, 2023, Huron County OPP reported a person was injured when officers went to arrest two people in Seaforth.

The final report from the SIU, released Feb. 15, provides new information about what allegedly transpired.

According to the report, officers were initially called about an automobile theft that had occurred at the Tim Horton.

It goes on to say an officer soon spotted the vehicle headed westbound on Browntown Road but he was keeping his distance and soon lost sight of the truck.

A short time later, the truck was found out of gas and without its trailer, according to the SIU.

Police soon discovered that the man behind the wheel had gone to a nearby home and asked to use the phone, the SIU report reads.

He was then picked up by a woman in a white SUV and gone before officers arrived at the home.

Officers picked up their trail at the Tim Hortons in Wingham, where they began to follow them to a home in Seaforth, according to the report.

The SUV pulled into a driveway and along the side of the house before the driver noticed that a car had pulled up behind them and officers were approaching on both sides of the SUV.

When they were ordered out of the SUV, the SIU says the woman behind the wheel put the vehicle in drive, striking one of the officers as they fled the scene, the SIU report read.

It went on to say that at that time, the officer had their gun out, and fired three shots into the SUV before it left the scene. The two officers at the scene got into their vehicles to pursue the pair but were told to drop pursuit by their dispatcher.

A short time later, a man was dropped off at the Clinton Public Hospital with a bullet would in his chest and shrapnel injuries to his arm, according to the SIU report. About a month later, the driver was arrested and it was discovered that she had been shot in her upper thorax.

“In the heat of the moment, with only split seconds to decide on a course of action with one’s life hanging in the balance, the criminal law would not deprive an officer from acting as the (officer) did,” SIU director Joseph Martino concluded in his report.

“In arriving at this conclusion, I note that retreat was not a viable option given how quickly events unfolded around the SUV.”

Martino also noted that while the woman claimed the officer had fired before the SUV was driven, she had also given a contradictory version of the events to an acquaintance.

The SIU is an independent agency that investigates incidents involving police that have resulted in death, serious injury or alleged sexual assault.