Sword-wielding Sudbury, Ont., suspect told police he’d cut off their hands

The firearm was a Sig Sauer Model P320 9 mm semi-automatic pistol. A cartridge was located in, and removed from, the breech. Its magazine contained 16 cartridges. (SIU photo)

Sudbury police did nothing wrong when they shot and wounded a mentally ill suspect who attacked them with a spear and a sword.

That’s the conclusion of the Special Investigations Unit, which has released its investigation into February 2024 incident, which took place in the area of Frood Road and Kathleen Street.

Police arrived at the barricaded residence at 9:43 a.m. and the suspect briefly appeared in an enclosed porch, “threatening, as he did so, to cut off their hands if they entered the house,” the SIU said.

More police arrived in the next couple of hours and established an inside and outside perimeter around the house. A mental health doctor was consulted and police tried several times to make contact by calling the suspect’s cellphone.

“At about 1:45 p.m., officers learned that the complainant was on social media indicating that the government was corrupt, police were at his door and it was a good day to die,” the SIU incident narrative said.

At that point, police decided to force their way inside, breaking open the door with a battering ram. One officer had a semi-automatic pistol, another had an ARWEN (which fires less lethal projectiles) and a third had a shield.

“They were immediately confronted by the complainant from a couple of metres away,” the SIU said.

The ARWEN had a total of three live cartridges loaded into the five-cartridge rotary cylinder. (SIU photo)

“A sword in his right hand and a spear in his left, the complainant advanced towards the officers and swung his weapons repeatedly in their direction. Most of the blows were deflected by the shield but some connected with the officers.”

Police fired a stun gun twice, but the suspect was wearing a ballistic vest that blocked at least one of the probes. One officer fired the ARWEN and another fired three to five rounds from the pistol.

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The suspect was hit in the right leg by the bullets and police retreated. One officer was wounded in the hand and required surgery. About 10 minutes later, the suspect answered the phone and agreed to surrender.

“The complainant was transported to hospital and diagnosed with a laceration to the left arm, bruising to his right leg and penis, a gunshot wound to the upper right thigh and a fractured right finger,” the SIU said.

Because someone was injured during an interaction with police, the SIU was automatically tasked with investigating police actions. Director Joseph Martino concluded there were “no reasonable grounds” to conclude that the police had broken the law.

Police were protecting themselves

“There is little doubt that (police officers) fired their weapons to protect themselves from a reasonably apprehended assault at the hands of the complainant,” Martino wrote.

“Both officers were being attacked at close quarters by edged weapons in the complainant’s possession when they reacted with force of their own.”

Police response to the attack constituted “reasonable force,” he said, and police took “due care and regard for the complainant’s health,” using force as a last resort.”

“Efforts to peacefully negotiate a resolution to the standoff had been ineffective and there was a legitimate worry about the complainant doing harm to himself when the police decided a more proactive approach was in order.”

The officer who fired the pistol had reasonable grounds to do so because his colleagues were “at risk of grievous bodily harm or death,” Martino said.

“He was entitled, in the circumstances, to meet a lethal danger with a resort to lethal force of his own.”

Read the full report here.