There’s been at least one previous thread about this killing.
Sammy Yatim was on a Toronto street car with a knife and acting oddly.
The police were called and the matter all videoed by bystanders.
Yatim started coming towards the police with the knife. One police officer fired three shots at Yatim, which took him down.
The officer then fired six more shots. He said afterwards that he thought Yatim was getting up, but nothing in the videos confirmed that.
The post-mortem indicated that Yatim was dying from the first three shots, which would have proven fatal in their own.
The Crown brought two charges of murder and attempted murder, for each volley of shots.
The jury acquitted the officer on the first volley, but convicted on attempted murder for the second volley.
The officer appealed the conviction. The Ontario Court of Appeal, the highest Ontario court, today upheld the verdict.
They held that the jury apparently had at least a reasonable doubt about the need for the first volley, in the circumstances, leading to the acquittal. However, the Court concluded that the trial judge did not err in accepting the Crown’s approach that each volley counted as a separate act, even though separated by only seconds, and that the jury could reasonably conclude that the second volley was unnecessary and thus attempt murder.
I am having to dredge up some doctrine from as far back as law school, but if I understand correctly, the officer is not guilty of murder because the first (fatal) volley was justified and the second volley did not cause the victim’s death, but he is guilty of attempted murder with the second volley, because shooting even a dead or dying man with the intent and belief that you are unjustifiably trying to kill him constitutes attempt? I’m not disagreeing with the verdict, just trying to work through it.
Just to elaborate on my description of him “behaving oddly” - according to Wikipedia he was brandishing a switchblade at another passenger and exposed himself, then began yelling obscenities. The driver of the streetcar stopped the car and all the passengers got out safely.
(Wasn’t trying to underplay his behaviour, but couldn’t remember the details and didn’t have time to check until now. )
From what little I know, that makes sense. I’m not sure about the first one, but the second one definitely seems too much. Plus what I saw from that van murderer was that Canadian officers are supposed to use the least force, so he should have swapped to lower force as soon as the guy was down.