SIU clears officers after man shot at hunting cabin north of Belleville

Ontario's police watchdog says it's cleared two officers after a shooting this winter left a man injured at a hunting cabin in the Marmora and Lake area north of Belleville, Ont.

A 48-year-old man was seriously injured in the December 2023 shooting and treated at a Kingston hospital, according to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU).

The agency investigates police conduct that may have resulted in death, serious injury, sexual assault or the discharge of a firearm at a person. It can recommend criminal charges.

At the time of the shooting, the SIU said preliminary information suggested the man was first struck by a round from an Anti-Riot Weapon Enfield (ARWEN), which can launch projectiles like plastic bullets, tear gas and less-lethal "batons."

The SIU said the man was then shot with a firearm, and no further details were provided.

Threatened to 'burn down the camp'

In an update Friday, the SIU provided more details into what happened that afternoon at the cabin about 50 kilometres north of Belleville, between Ottawa and Toronto.

On Dec. 14, at about 2:30 p.m., officers responded to a call for an "unwanted person."

The property owner wanted the 48-year-old man removed "as he had threatened to harm him and burn down the camp," the SIU said.

When the officers arrived, the man barricaded himself in the cabin and allegedly threatened to get into a shootout with police, according to the SIU.

"The [man] cautioned the police to be careful what they were walking into. They had no idea what he was capable of," read the telephone records in the SIU's report. "The [man] was getting his machete out and yelled out the cabin for the police officers to come on in."

An OPP officer's Colt Model C8 carbine semi-automatic rifle. This was the weapon used to shoot the man at a cabin after he barricaded himself, according to the SIU. (SIU)

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Emergency response team officers and negotiators with the OPP were deployed, the SIU said. But during the ensuing negotiations, at around 8 p.m., the man fired a shotgun out the window.

Though no one was hit by the bullet, it "narrowly missed" one OPP member, the SIU said.

Shortly after 11 p.m., one officer fired his ARWEN twice at one of the cabin windows, breaking it. In response, the man fired three more rounds at police shortly after midnight, the SIU said.

That's when another officer returned fire from 30 to 40 metres away from the cabin, striking the man in his left shoulder. The shot left him with a shattered left humerus, left rib fractures and a partial collapse of his left lung, the SIU said.

'Their lives were in peril,' says director

In his decision, SIU director Joseph Martino said he was satisfied the officer fired his rifle in self-defence and the use of force was reasonable.

"Knowing that [the man] was subject to a court order prohibiting the possession of firearms, the police had a duty to do what they reasonably could to take the complainant into custody and prevent him hurting himself or others," Martino wrote.

"Their lives were in peril. Withdrawal or retreat were not viable options given the exigencies of the situation, namely, continuous live fire."

With respect to firing the ARWEN, that was meant to break a window and to "rouse the [man] after an extended period of non-communication," Martino wrote, calling it "justifiable force."

"Doing something to get him talking again – either because of the distraction caused by a shattered window or now being able to communicate through an open window – seems a legitimate tactic despite the risk that one or both of the ARWEN rounds might have struck the [man]," he wrote.