Jaswinder Khosa, centre, longtime friend of Charnjit Bassi,surrounded by friends, speaks during Bassi’s memorial service Thursday at Su Gurdwara Jot Parkash Sahib in Brampton.
Mourners for Brampton courthouse shooter Charnjit Bassi left with many questions
A friend who tended Bassi’s body in preparation for Thursday’s funeral believes he saw four gunshot wounds; mourners want surveillance footage made public.
Jaswinder Khosa, centre, longtime friend of Charnjit Bassi,surrounded by friends, speaks during Bassi’s memorial service Thursday at Su Gurdwara Jot Parkash Sahib in Brampton.
By Zoe McKnight Special to the Star, Jennifer Pagliaro Crime Reporter
Questions are still swirling around the Brampton courthouse shooting, even as final rites were performed for Charnjit Bassi.
Since the Special Investigations Unit invoked its mandate, few details have been released about the incident, including why Bassi, 45, was at the courthouse last Friday, how the exchange of gunfire actually occurred, what the motive might have been and how many times Bassi and Const. Mike Klarenbeek were shot.
Longtime friend Jaswinder Khosa helped wash Bassi’s body, as is Sikh custom, before it was dressed for Thursday’s funeral. He said he saw what he believed to be four gunshot wounds in Bassi’s upper body, including a wound behind his right ear.
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“Family and everybody wants to see what happened, how he got shot,” Khosa said.
The confrontation with Peel Regional Police last Friday at the A. Grenville and William Davis Courthouse killed Bassi and left Klarenbeek with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. According to preliminary information from the SIU, Bassi entered the courthouse and shot Klarenbeek before police struck him down.
Klarenbeek was still recovering in hospital Thursday, said Peel Regional Police Association president Wayne Omardeen. The union boss said Klarenbeek was not yet comfortable about speaking publicly.
“He’s just not prepared at this time,” Omardeen told the Star.
However, despite a history of various arrests and charges — all of which were dropped — Bassi had no reason to be at the courthouse the day of the shooting. Bassi’s friends are eager for answers.
“If the story is true, why don’t they show some video?” said family friend Darshan Ghankas from the temple after the funeral. “They have cameras in every corner there.”
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About 150 people gathered at a Brampton funeral home for a service led by a Sikh granthi (officiant). A single candle and one framed photo rested on the open casket. Men wearing patkas and women wearing head scarves streamed past the body, which was on view before his cremation.
Bassi has been described by friends as a devout Sikh and committed dad to the daughter of his ex-wife, who was also at the funeral with her father.
“He was a philosophical kind of guy,” said Randhir Singh, who last saw Bassi at a family gathering less than a week before the shooting.
The Canadian Press earlier reported that the SIU — which is called in when police are involved in incidents leading to serious injury or death — was investigating the actions of two officers in the shooting. But on Thursday, the SIU refused to clarify how many officers had been designated as subject officers — directly involved in the shooting — and how many had been identified as witnesses.
On March 28, eyewitnesses told the Star they heard at least six gunshots. One lawyer, who identified herself only by the initials A.A., walked in behind the shooter, who held the front door for her and was about seven metres away when the shooting started.
“He wanted to enter the building under the pretense that he was a lawyer,” she told the Star at the time, tearing up. “He pointed a gun at the police officer. He could have shot anyone.”
Zoe McKnight Zoe McKnight is a former Toronto Star staff reporter who is currently a freelance contributor for The Star.
Jennifer
Pagliaro is a Toronto-based crime reporter for the Star. Follow
her on Twitter: @jpags.
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