The prosecutor at a Toronto Police Service disciplinary hearing accused a high-ranking inspector of failing to remove herself from an active investigation into a family member in a heated exchange on the seventh and final day of the proceedings.
Inspector Joyce Schertzer, a high-profile former homicide detective who years ago participated in the criminal probe into former mayor Rob Ford, faces three charges of misconduct for allegedly involving herself in the investigation and police response to her nephew’s car crash in 2022. She pleaded not guilty last week.
“I did not insert myself in this investigation whatsoever,” Insp. Schertzer told prosecutor Scott Hutchison during a tense cross-examination on Tuesday.
“But you didn’t extract yourself from it either, did you?” he replied.
Insp. Schertzer insisted repeatedly that she was at the scene solely as a family member to ensure her nephew’s wellness. But Mr. Hutchison pressed on, noting that she didn’t call paramedics or fire services.
At one point, she broke into tears.
“I just really want you to understand that this is difficult for me,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m sorry.”
Insp. Schertzer’s nephew, Calvin Dejak, drove his white pickup truck into a light pole in May, 2022. He had been leaving the Boulevard Club, an upscale lakefront club, around 11:20 a.m., according to surveillance footage played during the hearing. The video shows his truck turning left onto the westbound lane of Lake Shore Boulevard, accelerating and hitting the pole, doing significant damage to the vehicle.
The internal disciplinary hearing, which began on Monday last week, is being administered by the Toronto Police Service and adjudicated by a retired Ontario Provincial Police superintendent.
The tribunal heard last week that Mr. Dejak had consumed alcohol the night before the crash, that he took an Uber back to his apartment, and that he had returned to the Boulevard Club the following morning to pick up his truck. (At the time, he had a G2-level driver’s licence, which requires drivers to have a blood-alcohol level of zero when operating a vehicle.)
After learning of the crash from her daughter, Insp. Schertzer, then the unit commander for the 11 Division police district, said that she asked a front-desk officer to dispatch a car, then headed to the scene herself – despite the incident having occurred in the catchment area for the neighbouring 14 Division.
Insp. Schertzer told defence lawyer Joanne Mulcahy on Monday that she believed the Boulevard Club was within her division’s boundaries at the time. By the time a police unit arrived on scene, Insp. Schertzer was already there.
Body-camera footage shows the officer, Constable Braden Doherty, speaking with Mr. Dejak. The rattled driver says he sped up during his left turn to avoid a car approaching in the eastbound lane, but lost control and crashed.
Constable Doherty said last week that he determined there was “no criminality” in the crash, and that he didn’t believe alcohol was a factor. He released Mr. Dejak from the scene after a brief conversation with the driver and Insp. Schertzer, according to the body-camera footage.
Mr. Dejak only returned after a superintendent for the Traffic Services unit demanded Insp. Schertzer bring him back, the tribunal heard last week.
A Traffic Services constable, Michael Clarke, said last week that he suspected Mr. Dejak had been consuming alcohol prior to the crash, but was unable to administer a breath test because the driver returned to the scene outside of the three-hour window for a test.
Ms. Mulcahy, the defence lawyer, focused her closing arguments on the “unique situation” Insp. Schertzer faced after the crash.
“You have to place yourself in her shoes with respect to these charges,” she told the hearing. “She had no choice in terms of attending the scene from a humanity perspective.”
Mr. Hutchison pointed in his closing to what he called a “perfunctory” investigation by Constable Doherty, an 11 Division officer and Insp. Schertzer’s subordinate. His investigation lasted roughly 10 minutes, the prosecutor said, and he asked Mr. Dejak leading, “lobbed ball” questions about his alcohol consumption.
“The effect, in my submission, is the gentlest traffic investigation you’ll ever see,” Mr. Hutchison told the hearing.
He also revisited a nearly two-minute gap in Constable Doherty’s body-camera footage; the constable asks Insp. Schertzer whether he can disable the camera seconds before doing so.
“He’s not talking to her as the aunt,” the prosecutor said. “He quite clearly is talking to her as the inspector.”
This case is not about an impaired driver, Mr. Hutchison said.
“It is about the way in which this collision was investigated, and whether or not the inspector, by her conduct, caused that investigation to be insufficient or inadequate – and whether in doing so she placed herself in a conflict of interest.”
A ruling is scheduled to be delivered in early August.
Constable Braden Doherty asks Inspector Joyce Schertzer if it's okay to turn off his body camera at the scene of the collision.