Inquest into the death of Bob Srigley

Mar 22, 2017

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.”