On April 9 at approximately 5 pm, Frontenac Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) received several complaints of a possible impaired driver in a large truck on Road 38 northbound near Murvale Road in South Frontenac Township.

Officers located the vehicle on Alton Road just north of the town of Harrowsmith. As a result of the investigation the 36- year old male driver Corey Fleming of South Frontenac Township was charged under the Criminal Code of Canada with: Driving Motor Vehicle While Ability Impaired by Alcohol; Driving with More than 80 mgs of Alcohol in Blood.

The vehicle was seized for 7 days and the driver's licence was immediately suspended for 90 days. The accused was released on a Promise to Appear to attend the Ontario Court of Justice in Kingston on May 4th.

The Napanee/Kaladar Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) would like to make the public aware of The Vulnerable Person Registry (VPR) that is now available to the community. This service allows caregivers and guardians to submit vital information about a person who may pose a safety concern to themselves or the public because of a medical, physical or a mental health condition.

Contact: Juliane Porritt Community Safety Officer Napanee OPP

Phone: 613-354-3369 ext 6755 or Juliane.Porritt@ opp. ca

On March 28, 2017 at approximately 12:35 pm, a Frontenac OPP officer was conducting traffic safety patrols in the village of Sydenham in South Frontenac Township.

The officer observed a silver Cavalier exit a parking lot southbound onto Wheatley Street. The driver of the vehicle deliberately caused the vehicle's tires to lose traction with the roadway resulting in a yawing motion of the vehicle and what is commonly referred to as a "burn out" maneuver. There was visible smoke from the tires of the vehicle as it moved in a fishtail like motion. This maneuver was conducted on the public roadway within a few feet of a crowded sidewalk.

As a result the 17 year old male driver was charged with: Operate a Motor Vehicle While Performing a Stunt - Contrary to the Highway Traffic Act. His driver's licence was suspended and his vehicle was impounded, both for a period of seven days.

Contact: PC Roop Sandhu - 613-532- 0247

On Tuesday, April 4, the Mayor of South Frontenac Township, Ron Vandewal, will be rolling up his sleeves and participating in the daily production and delivery of weekly Hot Meals on Wheels. Additionally, several OPP officers will be delivering Hot Meals on Wheels alongside our delivery volunteers.

It is a promotion designed to raise the profile of meals on wheels.

It is an opportunity for Mayor Vandewal to experience the entire process of what goes into our charity preparing over 30 hot meals and the logistics of delivering them to clients across South Frontenac Township

Don’t be alarmed at the sight of OPP cruisers at Verona and Sydenham Foodland stores on April 1st – in fact, be sure to stop by and see how much food can fit into a police cruiser.

On Saturday, April 1, from 10:00am to 3:00pm, the OPP Auxiliary will be supporting the South Frontenac food bank by hosting their bi-annual “Stuff the Cruiser” event. In partnership with the Foodland stores in Verona and Sydenham, customers will be encouraged to make donations of non-perishable food, and stuff their donations in the OPP cruiser on site.

“The community was incredibly generous over the Christmas holiday season, and the food bank shelves were full and overflowing,” says food bank coordinator, Vicki England, “but as spring and summer approach, stocks begin to go down, particularly of certain items that are given out regularly” England states that the food bank is in need of certain items. “We are in need of cereal, small jars of peanut butter, chunky soup, pasta sauce, and canned fruit.”

England also states that the food bank is completely supported by donations, not only of food, but also of cash. “Many people don’t think of the food bank as needing money, but it needs to pay for operating expenses, and to buy fresh food like meats, dairy, and eggs.” Cash donations over $20 are eligible for a tax deductible receipt.

The food bank has one part-time staff member, and a dedicated team of twenty volunteers who receive and sort donations, and prepare and distribute food hampers to over 50 families – or about 80 people total – each month.

Adds Janet McComb, a food bank volunteer; “The Foodland stores are great, and put together packages of some of our most needed items. Then they sell these packages to customers at a significant price reduction.” Customers can choose to purchase a pre-packaged bag, or to donate whatever they would like.

“It’s always fun, and a great visual to see the OPP officers interacting with the public, and giving of their time to support our community,” says England.

Bob Srigley died on July 28, 2013, three days after being shot 6 times by two OPP officers at his property on the Arden Road in Central Frontenac late on a hot summer afternoon.

On February 25, 2014, the Director of the Special Investigations Unit of Ontario, Tony Loparco, released a report on the circumstances of Srigley’s death. The concluding paragraph of the his report reads as follows: “having reviewed all the evidence in its totality I am duty bound to ask: ‘Were the subject officers justified in the use of lethal force in these circumstances?’ I am of the view that they were and accordingly, I have no reasonable grounds to believe that any of the officers committed a criminal offense in relation to this unfortunate death. His actions put him into a position where the officers had no other recourse than to use deadly force. To do otherwise would have been to put their lives or the lives of their partners at risk.”

Three years and two months have passed since Director Loparco released his report, and the Coroners Office of Ontario has set the date for a mandatory inquest into the events surrounding the death of Bob Srigley. The inquest is mandatory because Srigley was technically in custody at the time of his death.

Dr. Paul Dungey, the regional supervising coroner for the East Region, said that the coroner’s office intends to hold inquests within 2 years of the end of any police investigation into an incident, but scheduling issues have meant for a delay in this case. The 8 month gap between the death of Srigley and the release of the SIU report was also unusually long.

The coroners inquest will be presided over by Dr. John Carlisle of Toronto, and his counsel will be Michael Blain.  Approximately 9 witnesses are expected to testify and 5 days have been set aside. A five member jury will hear the testimony and will submit a report, which may include recommendations aimed at preventing similar deaths in the future.

According to the Ministry of Community Safety and Correction Services (CSCS) website, The Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario “serves the living through high quality death investigations and inquests to ensure that no death will be overlooked, concealed or ignored. The findings are used to generate recommendations to help improve public safety and prevent deaths in similar circumstances.”

According to Paul Dungey, the inquest is intended to answer five questions: who died, where did they die, when did they die, and how did the death occur (ie medical cause) and by what means did the death occur.”

“Inquests do not assign blame. They are not a trial. They are held in a court like setting but they are not an adversarial process,” Dungey said.

The CSCS website says “An inquest is an inquisitorial process designed to focus public attention on the circumstances of a death. It is to be a dispassionate public examination into the facts and all participants have a responsibility to conduct themselves with dignity and respect.”

In the case of Bob Srigley, the public already has answers to the first four questions. The only information that has been made available about question number 5, the circumstances surrounding the death, is contained in the Loparco report.

In his synopsis of the moments preceding when shots were fired in the case, Loparco wrote the following:  “As the officers descended the laneway toward the man’s trailer, one of the officers called out the man’s name. The man burst out of the front door of the trailer, empty-handed and naked. While screaming and yelling, the man sprinted across to a picnic table, picked up a scoped rifle lying on the table, raised it and pointed it at the officers. The man was ordered to drop his weapon, but would not do so. One of the officers deployed his CEW [taser device], but was too far away for it to have any effect. While still holding his rifle, which was pointed at the officers, the man turned around, began walking toward the front porch of his residence, and stopped at the porch stairway. The man did not heed repeated commands to drop his weapon. Two of the officers discharged their firearms, striking the man six times.”

Loparco also wrote that during the investigation into the incident, one of the two “subject officers” (ie shooters) took part in the interviews but did not provide his notes, and the other “declined to provide an interview or his notes to the SIU, as is his legal right.”

Aside from OPP officers, there were no other witnesses to the shooting.

The entire incident was instigated by a 911 call that came from the Frontenac News office. Among the first responders were the Central Frontenac Fire Department. The department took a bit of time to get to the scene because the fire chief, Bill Young, had to retrieve a boat before answering the call. Mr. Srigley had threatened to burn himself to death in his boat when talking on the phone to a member of the Frontenac News staff, hence the 911 call.

By the time Bill Young arrived at the Arden Road, police had already set up a roadblock. To our knowledge, subject to confirmation at the coroners inquest, the only witnesses to the shooting were 6 members of the OPP.

The complete SIU report into the incident is provided below:

The Director of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Tony Loparco, has concluded that there are no reasonable grounds to charge either of two Ontario Provincial Police officers with the Lanark County detachment with a criminal offence in relation to the death of a 45-year-old man in July of 2013.

The SIU assigned five investigators and two forensic investigators to the incident. As part of the investigation, five witness officers and 10 civilian witnesses were interviewed. One subject officer took part in an SIU interview but did not provide his notes, and the other subject officer declined to provide an interview or his notes to the SIU, as is his legal right.

The SIU investigation found that the following events took place on Thursday, July 25, 2013:

• At approximately 4:30 p.m., four officers were dispatched to a home on Arden Road to deal with reports of a suicidal male who had indicated that he intended to burn himself to death. They parked their vehicles at the top of a graveled laneway. The officers were armed with service firearms and other use of force options including an ASP baton. One of the officers was carrying a fire extinguisher and another one of the officers was also equipped with a conducted energy weapon (CEW).

• As the officers descended the laneway toward the man’s trailer, one of the officers called out the man’s name. The man burst out of the front door of the trailer, empty-handed and naked. While screaming and yelling, the man sprinted across to a picnic table, picked up a scoped rifle lying on the table, raised it and pointed it at the officers. The man was ordered to drop his weapon, but would not do so. One of the officers deployed his CEW, but was too far away for it to have any effect. While still holding his rifle, which was pointed at the officers, the man turned around, began walking toward the front porch of his residence, and stopped at the porch stairway. The man did not heed repeated commands to drop his weapon.

• Two of the officers discharged their firearms, striking the man six times. The man underwent surgery for his injuries at Kingston General Hospital. He died the evening of July 28, 2013 of ‘complications from multiple gunshot wounds’.

Director Loparco said, “In light of the information about his suicide threats the police in this case had a duty to apprehend the man under Section 17 of the Mental Health Act. They properly engaged emergency services to assist them if necessary. Because of information they had about the man’s unpredictability and his hatred of police, one of the officers attended with a CEW and another brought a rifle to the scene.

“The moment the man ran naked screaming and yelling to the picnic table in his yard and picked up his air rifle - which appeared to be a lethal high powered scoped rifle with a flared barrel - and pointed it at the officers, he initiated the sequence of actions that led to his death. One of the subject officers who discharged his service pistol indicated he believed that the man intended to kill him. The other witness officers also indicated a fear of death and helplessness or vulnerability. Objectively, factors which informed the reasonableness of this subjective fear included the following: (1) the loud music at the scene and its secluded location, (2) the man’s alleged proclivity for violence and hatred of the police, (3) the man’s mental state, (4) the man’s pronouncements about committing suicide, (5) the pointing of the rifle at the officers and (6) the rapid speed at which the incident occurred.”

Director Loparco concluded, “Having reviewed all the evidence in its totality I am duty bound to ask: ‘Were the subject officers justified in the use of lethal force in these circumstances?’ I am of the view that they were and accordingly, I have no reasonable grounds to believe that any of the officers committed a criminal offence in relation to this unfortunate death. His actions put him into a position where the officers had no other recourse than to use deadly force. To do otherwise would have been to put their lives or the lives of their partners at risk.”

On March 17, 2017 at approximately 10:15 pm, Sharbot Lake, Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers responded to an altercation between two males at a residence on Clement Road in Central Frontenac Township.

Investigation indicated that the two males known to each other were involved in an argument, when one male stabbed the other in the neck with a knife. The victim was transported to hospital by ambulance with non-life threatening injuries.

The suspect fled the scene but shortly returned and was located by police near the parking area.  

Andrew STONESS (22) of Central Frontenac Township was arrested and is charged with; Assault with a Weapon under the Criminal Code Section 267(a).

He was released and is scheduled to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice in Kingston on April 25, 2017.

Darrell Green, 61, a nearby resident, drowned after his ATV went through the ice on the East Bay of Buck Lake, north of Perth Road Village on Sunday, March 11.

A family friend of the deceased became concerned when Green did not arrive to meet him at a certain location on Buck Lake. The friend began to search near the shorelines around the route that Green would have taken and observed a partly submerged ATV and a helmet in a narrow section of the Lake. Nearby this location South Frontenac Fire and Rescue recovered Green's body from the icy water.

The Frontenac OPP do not suspect any foul play.

This latest drowning occurred just one day after two men drowned in nearby Big Rideau Lake near Westport in the Township of Rideau Lakes.

Constable Roop Sandhu, of the Frontenac OPP, said that the ice conditions on all lakes in the region are particularly unpredicatble this season, due to the mix of warm and cold temperatures. Sandhu put out a release warning about unsafe ice conditions on February 25th, during the height of an unusual February warm spell, and  said this week that the warning has stayed in effect.

“Ice is constantly changing in response to weather and water conditions and is effected by many different factors including thickness, currents, age of the ice, pressure cracks and snow cover,” the release said.

At the time, OPP East Region Manager of Traffic and Marine, Inspector Paul Bedard said "The OPP is committed to saving lives on Ontario's highways, trails, and waterways through the reduction of preventable injury and death. This ice warning applies during any prolonged period of thaw or rain, and late in the season after ice begins to deteriorate from milder temperatures."

At this time the OPP has reiterated the warning that to stay off the ice, even with this week’s colder temperatures.

“The ice is very unpredictable right now,” said Sandhu.

The Frontenac and Sharbot Lake detachments of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) in the past few weeks have received several complaints from the public regarding an employment scam that was posted in the Frontenac News.

In the classified section of the newspaper was an ad for an experienced caregiver to start work immediately to care for an elderly person with Dementia. The applicants would correspond with the fraudsters through email and eventually an overpayment fraudulent cheque in the amount of over $3,000 would be mailed out to the potential victims with the instructions to keep $400 from the cheque and forward the balance through some type of money transfer back to the culprit.

The Frontenac/ Sharbot Lake OPP wish to remind area residents to be cautious of any overpayment in the form of a money order or cheque. You can protect yourself from similar types of fraud by taking the following precautions:

• Knowing who you deal with; independently confirm the person/buyer name, street address and telephone number.
• Never accept a cheque or money order for more than your selling price.
• Never agree to wire back funds to a buyer. A legitimate buyer will not pressure you to do so.
• Resist pressure to "act now". You can always visit a bank branch to determine if the cheque or money order is legitimate.

For more information on frauds you can visit the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at www.antifraudcentre.ca or call them at 1-888-495-8501.

On February 16, a classified ad appeared in the Frontenac News that police confirmed this week is an attempt to scam those who answered it. Under Help Wanted, the ad offered $20 an hour for caregivers willing to work 4 – 5 days a week caring for a women with dementia. Applicants were asked to reply via email. The ad was supposed to run for four weeks, but a couple of days after the paper came out we started hearing from readers who said when they responded they were immediately offered a job and told they would receive a check for $400 as an advanced payment. Further, they were told the family was moving to the area and would need to furnish a house so they were going to received a $3,250 check and were supposed to write a $2,850 check to a third party who was going to use it to pay to set up the house.

We contacted the local OPP detachment, who began an investigation,  and our advice to everyone who contacted us, even one person who said they were not suspicious at all, was to make sure not to share any personal or electronic information no matter what transpired.

When we ran the credit card number through the system it was not only refused but was flagged as a potentially stolen card. We did not run the ad again, and posted a warning on our website instead. The warning was seen by a monthly paper in Ottawa that had also run the ad and they inquired about it and said another monthly in Ottawa had also run it.

Subsequently some of the people who responded to the ad have received cheques, via Fedex, for $3,250 dollars issued by a bank in British Columbia. To our knowledge none of the checks has cleared. OPP officers from the Frontenac detachment visited our office this week and confirmed that the whole thing is a scam. They speculate that the next phase of the scam is set to take place when the checks don’t clear, then the company will say there was a problem with the funds and will ask for the victims bank account number in order to transfer the $3,250 right away. Once they have the account number they will have an in to the victim’s finances, line of credit, etc.

OPP are continuing to investige.

All of this is taking place during during the month of March, which the OPP has designated as “Fraud prevention month”. An OPP release this week talks about some of the fraud activity that they have been dealing with on an ongoing basis.
“Fraud-related crimes take a destructive toll on victims while amassing millions of dollars to further criminal enterprises,” the release sais. “Sadly, 95 per cent of fraud victims never report the crime to police. Regardless of age, gender and location, everyone can take basic steps to better protect themselves from becoming victims of fraud. Some basic tips include never giving out personal or financial information at the door, over the phone, by e-mail or through social media, or on to unsecured retail or dating websites.”

Fraud prevention is the topic at two South Frontenac Seniors and Law Enforcement Together (SALT) lunch meetings this month. One of them took place on  March 10 in Storrington and the second is set for March 24 at the Grace Centre in Sydenham.