Ontario watchdog clears police in death of disabled man

Two Toronto officers have been cleared in the death of a disabled man who was physically taken to the ground after he was mistaken for another man who officers were looking for, according to a statement released late Wednesday by Ontario's police watchdog.

Charlie McGillivary, 45, had been out with his mother to get a slice of pizza one evening last August. Mr. McGillivary, who had been struck mute and brain damaged in a childhood car accident, was walking ahead of his mother. When she caught up with him, police officers had him on the ground, Ann McGillivary told The Globe in August. Shortly after he was taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

"His face turned blue and his eyes were already [rolling]" she said. "It was a heart attack from what I saw."

Until Wednesday, when the Special Investigations Unit released their decision, little was known about why police physically restrained Mr. McGillivary. The statement said the decision was made after interviewing 10 witness officers and 23 members of the public, a postmortem by the province's chief forensic pathologist, DNA testing and a review of a video recording from the incident.

The SIU said two officers arrived in the area of Bloor and Christie streets in response to a 911 call from a landlord who said a former tenant had been on her premises after his eviction and had refused to leave. By the time police arrived the former tenant had fled the area, the SIU said, but from their cruiser they saw Mr. McGillivary, a large man who roughly matched the description of the former tenant.

The officer in the passenger seat of the cruiser yelled at Mr. McGillivary, calling him the former tenant's name, and when Mr. McGillivary didn't respond and kept walking the police made a U-turn to drive alongside him. According to the statement, Mr. McGillivary immediately turned around and walked faster in the opposite direction.

Mr. McGillivary, who did not speak, didn't provide verbal responses when the officers caught up with him. They struggled with Mr. McGillivary and he didn't let them put handcuffs on him, so officers used a leg sweep to take him to the ground, according to the SIU. He landed on his stomach and continued to struggle, to the officers held both of his arms back so they could handcuff him.

"Immediately after Mr. McGillivary was handcuffed, he fell into medical distress; his complexion turned purple and he lost consciousness," the statement said. By the time an ambulance arrived, he had stopped breathing.

An initial autopsy showed minor blunt-force injuries and no obvious cause of death, the SIU said, but a review including DNA tests revealed an underlying heart condition. The province's chief forensic pathologist believed "the most likely explanation for Mr. McGillivary's death was the underlying heart condition" resulting in a cardiac arrhythmia precipitated by struggle and restraint, the statement said.

SIU director Ian Scott noted that a coroner's inquest will be called into the death, but in his investigation he found the two officers involved not criminally responsible.

"I am satisfied that the subject officers held an honest and reasonable but ultimately mistaken belief that the person they apprehended with respect to this incident was the man they were looking for," he said, noting he had reviewed photos of the two men and believed officers mistook them.

"Adding to this tragedy is that Mr. McGillivary had a series of psychological and mental disabilities that prevented him from communicating with the officers, and precipitated his flight and struggle when apprehended."

Toronto police previously declined to discuss their training to recognize people with mental illnesses and disabilities because of the investigation into Mr. McGillivary's death.

In the weeks after his death, a candlelight vigil was held for Mr. McGillivary and local NDP MP Rosario Marchese wrote to Toronto police Chief Bill Blair asking what training officers have for such situations.

"Something is wrong with that kind of scenario," Mr. Marchese said in an August interview. "I don't think the community feels assured that when the police confront this type of an individual, that they know what they're doing."