“Drop the weapon.”
Those may have been the last words Michael MacIsaac, 47, ever heard.
Whether the Ajax man understood them, will never be clear. He died last December after being shot twice by police.
His family believes he was having an epileptic seizure when he ran naked from his suburban home in the dead of winter.
Now the Durham police officer who drew his gun and yelled those words before shooting MacIsaac has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the province’s police watchdog.
The officer’s identity, which MacIsaac’s family believes they have a right to know, is being kept secret. The Special Investigations Unit, which probes all incidents of serious injury or death involving police, does not disclose that information unless charges are laid.
The case again raises troubling questions about how police respond to people in crisis — training on when a firearm is drawn, how officers speak to those in distress, and what danger they are really in.
MacIsaac was at home sick with his wife on Dec. 2 when he started acting strangely, his family says. Less than 30 minutes later, he had been shot by police. He died the next morning in hospital.
The SIU decision is the first major case and only the second police shooting case decided by newly-appointed director Tony Loparco, former head of the Scarborough Crown attorney’s office.
Since December, the MacIsaac family has been looking for answers — doing their own research, following up on leads and becoming advocates for other victims of police shootings.
His family has waited anxiously for six months to hear whether anyone would face trial for MacIsaac’s killing. One of five sisters, Joanne MacIsaac, told the Star this week she hadn’t slept for days ahead of a briefing by SIU investigators.
“They took a lot of liberties that day,” she said of the police recently. “I just don’t trust any of them.”
His wife, mother, sisters and 10 nieces and nephews only buried MacIsaac last month after waiting for further tests and autopsy results.
That moment of grief came without closure.
MacIsaac’s case resumes the debate over whether police training curriculum in Ontario, which hasn’t changed in 25 years, is outdated. At the Ontario Police College, former and current trainers say officers are told to react to behaviour and not respond to emotions when approached by someone with a weapon — and to shoot until the threat has stopped.
At a recent coroner’s inquest into three separate police shootings, officers testified to shouting at people in distress to “drop it” or drop the weapon. Mental health advocates say that strategy simply doesn’t work.
A Star series by Laura Kane revealed that in the last five years people with knives have harmed only four Toronto Police officers, while 18 people with what are considered “edged weapons’ were shot by police. Ten of them died.
When the Star wrote about MacIsaac’s story in March, both the SIU and Durham police declined to comment during an ongoing investigation. Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
SIU spokesperson Jasbir Brar said the agency “aims to complete investigations in a timely manner” and said each case is unique.
In a news release Tuesday evening, the SIU said MacIsaac encountered three officers that December morning after police were called for a disturbance in the neighbourhood.
As one officer exited his cruiser, the release said, MacIsaac approached him holding the table leg “in a threatening fashion.”
“The officer drew his firearm, pointed it at Mr. MacIsaac and ordered him to stop and drop the weapon,” the release said. “Mr. MacIsaac continued to advance towards the officer, prompting the subject officer to shoot twice.”
The SIU said MacIsaac was within five to seven feet of the officer when the shots were fired.
In the end, MacIsaac’s approach with the table leg and his non-response to the officer’s commands means the shooting was justified, SIU director Loparco concluded.
“In the circumstances, the officer’s fear for his life seems a reasonable one to have harboured, as was his belief that lethal force was necessary to preserve himself,” Loparco is quoted saying.
The officer who shot MacIsaac was interviewed by the SIU but did not hand over his notes, according to the release, which the law dictates he is not obligated to do.
The MacIsaac family, who were briefed by SIU investigators Tuesday of the decision, still do not understand why no one offered a naked man help before threatening harm.
Witnesses who spoke to the Star say MacIsaac never swung the table leg. One witness described MacIsaac taking a step down off the curb when shots were fired.
MacIsaac’s epilepsy stems from a traumatic brain injury he suffered as a child, his family says, and caused him to have partial seizures, where he was still conscious but not always in control.
The family also identified other problems as the investigation into the shooting began — like why it was Durham police and not the SIU who first came to interview them at the hospital and why the family home was searched while they were watching their loved one die.
“In some cases where a police service has its own bona fide investigative interest, the SIU is willing to make arrangements with the police to allow them to conduct their own investigation, so long as their involvement does not undermine or interfere with the SIU’s case and its independence,” SIU spokesperson Brar said in an email.
What’s also unclear is why police on scene that day did not tell dispatch they had just shot someone as MacIsaac lay bleeding on the tarmac. An ambulance report obtained by the Star shows the call was noted as “trauma unknown.”
Durham EMS confirmed paramedics did not know what kind of call they were attending.
An inquest into MacIsaac’s death has not been announced, but it is mandatory.
