The names of four Ontario police officers shot and killed in action in 2022 will be among those added to a memorial by officials on Sunday.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Elizabeth Dowdeswell will be at a ceremony organized by the Ontario Police Memorial Foundation to honour the lives of officers who died in the line of duty. Five names will be added to the memorial.
The name of Const. Andrew Hong from the Toronto police will be added. He died after being shot at a Tim Hortons in Mississauga while on a coffee run for colleagues in September 2022. He was a 22-year veteran of the force and worked for the specialized motorcycle unit, providing security for visiting dignitaries and politicians.
The names of two South Simcoe Police Servies officers who died responding to the same call in October will also be added. Const. Devon Northrup and Morgan Russell were both fatally shot while responding to a disturbance call in Innisfil, Ont. Ontario’s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, said the officers had not drawn their guns.
The name of Ontario Provincial Police Const. Grzegorz Pierzchala — shot and killed in December — will also be added to the wall. Pierzchala died in a shooting that police said they believed was an ambush. The man accused of killing him was initially refused bail, court documents show. He was denied bail in December 2021, as he awaited trial in Hamilton on a number of charges after he allegedly assaulted three people, including a peace officer, earlier that month.
Vicki Lynn Wilson, a Durham Regional Police constable who died in 1992, is the fifth name being added to the memorial.
The deaths of Ontario officers in 2022 have led to renewed calls from the Ford government for significant bail reform. Those calls were echoed by police forces in the province who came to Queen’s Park to make the plea.
Ford has made several calls for reform at the federal level and recently launched a “bail compliance team” designed to tackle violent crime.
The province said it was planning to spend $112 million to create dedicated teams in police forces across the province, expand a provincial squad that tracks down those who’ve broken bail conditions or are unlawfully at large, and create new specialized prosecution teams who deal with complex bail hearings where the accused has been deemed “high risk.”
On Sunday, the ceremony to remember the police officers who have died will be led by thousands in uniform from across Ontario, Canada and the United States. They will march along Queen’s Park Crescent and arrive at the Wall of Honour before the ceremony.
The remembrance event is set to begin at 11 a.m.
— with files from The Canadian Press