After a 14-year-old boy was killed by a car during a police chase in October 2023, the SIU has found no reasonable grounds to believe a York Regional Police officer committed a criminal offence in the death.
The boy died on Oct. 18, 2023 after he was struck by a car on Jane Street in Vaughan on Oct. 13 as he was being chased by an officer near Canada’s Wonderland.
Since the incident took place while York Regional Police was in pursuit of the teen, the SIU was notified and investigated the death.
The SIU said that the York Regional Police officer involved was patrolling the east parking lot of Canada’s Wonderland.
He was aware of robberies that had taken place in recent weeks at the park in which the assailants had fled east across the parking lot and the adjacent roadway – Jane Street — according to the SIU.
While operating a cruiser, the officer observed a male cross in front of his vehicle and decided to stop him just west of the drop-off-pickup zone at Canada’s Wonderland, the SIU report said.
“He accelerated and brought the cruiser to a stop where the male had crossed into the drop-off-pickup zone, exited, and ran around his vehicle and eastwards,” the report said. “By this time, the male was also running eastward towards Jane Street.”
The report said the 14-year-old male started his run midway through the drop-off-pickup zone and continued up and down a grassy berm and entered onto the southbound lanes of Jane.
Having cleared the southbound lanes, the 14-year-old continued into the northbound passing lane and the path of a white BMW, the report said.
“The front driver’s side of the BMW struck the (14-year-old), who catapulted onto the hood of the vehicle and struck the windshield before rolling off and impacting the rear of another vehicle stopped in a left-turn lane,” the report said.
The male suffered “catastrophic injuries” in the collision, according to the report, and the police officer immediately arranged for an ambulance, placed the 14-year-old in the recovery position, and checked on the persons whose vehicles had been struck.
The report said that firefighters and paramedics arrived quickly and rendered care, but the male was transported to hospital where he succumbed to his injuries five days later. The pathologist at autopsy was of the preliminary view that the 14-year-old’s death was attributable to complications from multiple blunt force trauma.
The SIU is an independent government agency that investigates the conduct of officials that may have resulted in death, serious injury, sexual assault and/or the discharge of a firearm at a person.
