Thursday morning’s shooting of a 39-year-old man following a traffic stop on Ottawa Street South in Kitchener is the fifth time a Waterloo Regional Police officer has shot a civilian in the past decade. Here are the others:
Nov. 20, 2007: Trevor Graham, 26, was shot and killed by police after robbing the Shoppers Drug Mart at Fischer-Hallman Road and Ottawa Street in Kitchener. Graham was suffering from mental illness and addiction issues, and was holding a utility farm. The officer who shot Graham was cleared by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit.
March 31, 2010: A police officer shot Ryan Arcon five times outside his apartment building on Erb Street West in Waterloo. Arcon, who spent 10 days in a coma and several weeks in hospital as a result, had been holding two steak knives. The officer was cleared by the SIU, which found that Arcon was moving toward police with the knives, while Arcon was later found guilty of assaulting a police officer and sentenced to six months of jail time.
April 2, 2015: 20-year-old Beau Baker was shot seven times outside a townhouse on Brybeck Crescent in Kitchener. Like Arcon, he was holding a knife and said to be moving toward a police officer at the time. The SIU found no issues with how police handled the incident. A coroner’s inquest will be held into his death, and Baker’s family has fired a $6-million lawsuit against the region’s police board and three officers.
April 30, 2015: Wesley Laforme was shot by a police officer after he had stabbed the officer once and his ex-girlfriend nine times outside a townhouse on Morning Calm Drive in Cambridge. Laforme received injuries that left him in a wheelchair, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempted murder and aggravated assault. The SIU found that Laforme’s actions left the officer with “no other choice” but to fire her weapon.
