The recommendations amounted to words on paper. Nothing changed.
Since 2019, four men of colour — Clive Mensah, Jamal Francique, D'Andre Campbell, and Ejaz Choudry — have been fatally shot by Peel Regional Police in Ontario, and in each case the Special Investigations Unit found no criminal wrongdoing. The SIU, born from a nearly identical tragedy in 1988, was designed to be the answer; instead, its narrow criminal mandate has become the boundary beyond which grieving families cannot pass. What endures is an old and unresolved question: when the institution built to deliver accountability cannot see beyond the threshold of criminal law, where does justice live?
- Four families are left without legal recourse after Ontario's police watchdog cleared officers in four fatal shootings — a pattern that has repeated itself across decades and communities.
- The SIU's charge rate tells its own story: out of nearly 4,900 cases opened between 2005 and 2020, only about 3 percent resulted in charges, a figure that critics say reflects structural limitation, not investigative rigour.
- Alternative paths — coroner's inquests, police review complaints, civil lawsuits — exist on paper but offer little traction, producing non-binding recommendations or demanding resources most bereaved families simply do not have.
- Experts and community members are pressing for oversight that goes beyond criminal findings to address disciplinary accountability and systemic patterns, particularly around race and mental health crisis response.
- Whether meaningful reform emerges depends on whether those most harmed by the current system are finally seated at the table where its redesign is decided.
Four men of colour — Clive Mensah, Jamal Francique, D'Andre Campbell, and Ejaz Choudry — have been fatally shot by Peel Regional Police since 2019. Ontario's Special Investigations Unit investigated each case and found no criminal wrongdoing. Their families are left with a question the system cannot answer: what does accountability look like when the investigation is over?
The SIU's charge rate offers a sobering context. Between 2005 and 2020, the unit opened nearly 4,900 cases and laid charges in roughly 3 percent of them. The problem, experts say, is not failure but design. The unit can only look for criminal wrongdoing — it cannot examine broader conduct, recommend discipline, or identify systemic patterns. University of Guelph political scientist Kate Puddister describes it as reactive by nature: it arrives after harm has already been done, and when no crime is found, the inquiry simply ends.
Families do have other options, but none carry real weight. A coroner's inquest can produce recommendations — as one did following the 2014 shooting of Jermaine Carby by Peel police — but those recommendations are not binding. La Tanya Grant, Carby's cousin, watched other Black men die in Peel in the years that followed. The words on paper changed nothing. Complaints to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director can lead to disciplinary hearings, but those are conducted internally by the police service itself. Civil lawsuits require money and time that most families do not have.
The deepest irony is historical. The SIU was created because of a case almost identical to the ones it now closes without charges. In 1988, Peel police shot and killed 17-year-old Michael Wade Lawson. Community outrage produced a task force, and the task force produced the SIU. Decades later, the same families are asking the same questions. Real reform, Puddister and others suggest, will only come when the communities most affected by police violence are brought into the conversation about how oversight is built — not consulted after the fact, but present at the foundation.
Four men of colour are dead. Clive Mensah, Jamal Francique, D'Andre Campbell, and Ejaz Choudry were all fatally shot by Peel Regional Police since 2019. In each case, Ontario's Special Investigations Unit completed an investigation and concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing by the officers involved. The families of these men are left asking a question that has no clear answer: what does justice look like now?
The SIU exists to investigate police actions that result in death, serious injury, or sexual assault allegations. It has the power to lay criminal charges. But that power is rarely used. Between 2005 and 2020, the unit opened nearly 4,900 cases and found enough evidence to proceed with charges in just 159 of them—roughly 3 percent. In 2019, out of 363 closed cases, only 13 led to charges. In 2020, 11 officers were charged across all of Ontario, including two from Peel. The math is stark: most investigations end with no charges at all.
The problem, according to experts, is not incompetence but design. The SIU's mandate is narrow by definition—it can only look for criminal wrongdoing. It cannot conduct broader reviews of police conduct. It cannot recommend disciplinary measures. It cannot examine systemic patterns. Kate Puddister, a political scientist at the University of Guelph who studied fifteen years of SIU cases, puts it plainly: the unit is reactive, not preventive. It shows up after something has already gone wrong. And when it concludes there is no crime, the investigation stops. There is nowhere else for a family to turn.
Or rather, there are a few places, but none of them are satisfying. A family can request a coroner's inquest, which might provide some closure and can produce recommendations for police services. But those recommendations are not legally binding. Jermaine Carby was shot by Peel police in 2014 during a traffic stop. A coroner's inquest in 2016 resulted in 14 recommendations. His cousin, La Tanya Grant, watched as other Black men died in Peel in the years that followed. The recommendations, she said, amounted to words on paper. Nothing changed.
A family can file a complaint with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director. If deemed justifiable, it goes to a disciplinary hearing—conducted in-house by the police service itself. There is no guarantee of accountability. A family with resources can hire a lawyer to petition oversight bodies or pursue a civil lawsuit. But legal action requires money and time that most families do not have. For everyone else, the options narrow to almost nothing.
Erick Laming, a policing expert at the University of Toronto, acknowledges the bind families find themselves in. Most want officers fired or charged. In most cases, neither happens. The SIU itself has acknowledged the pain these cases cause and recognizes they touch on broader questions about systemic racism in policing and how police respond to people in mental health crises. But acknowledgment is not the same as reform.
The irony is sharp: the SIU itself was created in response to a similar case. In 1988, Peel police shot and killed Michael Wade Lawson, a 17-year-old driving a stolen vehicle. Two officers were charged but acquitted. Community outrage led to a task force that recommended forming the SIU. Puddister notes the parallel with sadness. The unit was designed to fix the very problems that still exist today. Decades later, the same families are asking the same questions, and the system that was supposed to provide answers remains too narrow to deliver them. What comes next—whether real reform or continued frustration—depends on whether the community most affected by police oversight is finally brought into the conversation about how to fix it.
Citas Notables
The SIU came out of very similar circumstances, and it's sad we are still dealing with the same problems the SIU was created to fix.— Kate Puddister, political scientist, University of Guelph
Most of these families want the officers to be fired, or charged or anything that comes from that, but in most cases, that doesn't happen.— Erick Laming, policing expert, University of Toronto
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does the SIU keep clearing officers when families feel so certain something went wrong?
The SIU can only look for criminal wrongdoing. That's a very specific legal question—did the officer commit a crime? It's not the same as asking whether the shooting was justified, or whether the officer used appropriate judgment, or whether there were systemic failures. Those are different questions entirely.
So the families are asking for justice, but the SIU is only equipped to answer a narrower question?
Exactly. And when the answer to that narrow question is no—no crime—the investigation ends. There's nowhere else to go. A coroner's inquest might happen, but the recommendations aren't binding. A complaint to the police review director might lead to a disciplinary hearing, but it's conducted by the police themselves.
That sounds like a system designed to protect itself.
It's not designed to protect anyone in particular. It's just designed to be very specific about what it investigates. But specificity has a cost. When you can only look for crime, you miss everything else—the patterns, the training failures, the systemic issues.
How many cases actually result in charges?
Out of nearly 4,900 cases over fifteen years, charges were laid in about 159. That's roughly 3 percent. And even then, about a third of those charges were withdrawn by the Crown.
So a family's only real option is a lawsuit?
If they can afford one. Most can't. That's the real problem. The system has options, but they're only accessible to people with money and time. For everyone else, there's nowhere to go.
What would actually change this?
Bringing the community most affected by police oversight into the conversation about how to reform it. Not asking them after the fact, but consulting them from the beginning about what accountability should look like.