TORONTO – Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit says two police officers were “legally justified” in fatally shooting a man outside a Toronto nightclub last year.
The SIU concludes that police were acting in self-defence on July 25, 2015, when they shot Kwasi Skene-Peters, 21, who died from a gunshot wound to the heart.
Police had issued a Canada-wide warrant for Skene-Peters’s arrest on two charges of first-degree murder two weeks before the shooting.
The SIU says a firefight broke out when officers approached Skene-Peters in his car to arrest him and that two gunshots came from inside the vehicle.
The report says police returned fire only after those initial shots were fired and SIU director Tony Loparco says he has “no doubt” the officers feared for their lives.
The two officers under investigation did not participate in SIU interviews or provide copies of their duty notes.