Ontario’s police watchdog has concluded no criminal charges are warranted after shots were fired by two RCMP officers at the Onslow Fire Hall during the mass shooting rampage in the province in April of 2020.
The Nova Scotia Serious Incident Response Team asked Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit to review whether any new information considered by the Mass Casualty Commission had not been considered in its investigation of the shooting.
The Ontario SIU says the RCMP officers had reasonable grounds to believe the person they saw at the fire hall, who was disobeying their orders, was the mass murderer.
The SIU says at that point police were still on the trail of a killer who had randomly killed at least eight people in the last 12 hours.
The Special Investigations Unit says the officers had a lawful excuse when they discharged their firearms in light of the protections afforded to peace officers by Section 25 of the Criminal Code and the totality of the circumstances, in what was a rapidly unfolding series of events.