Police as Victims and Perpetrators of Homicide: Ontario as a Case Study

• In Event: Police Homicides

Abstract

An understanding of police involvement in homicides as victims or perpetrators is limited in Canada due to underreporting, classification error and the often insufficient detail that is publicly available about some of these events. As victims, official estimates report that police officers make up the largest proportion of those killed in relation to their legal profession with 133 police officers killed between 1961 and 2009. As perpetrators, numbers are more difficult to determine, but some estimates reported in the media suggest that police-perpetrated homicides rest at approximately 15 incidents per year between 2000 and 2014. To gain a broader understanding of trends in and characteristics of homicides involving police, this study draws from multiple data sources to document the circumstances surrounding these events and those involved between 1985 and 2013 in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. Drawing from coroner records, inquests, court documents and media reports for about 110 police-perpetrated homicides and approximately 25 homicides involving police victims, more detailed descriptions of these events are provided, including similarities and differences depending on whether police are victims or perpetrators. Preliminary analysis of this sample of homicides will be used to identify challenges in data collection and future avenues of research.

Authors

• Danielle Sutton, University of Guelph

• Myrna Dawson, University of Guelph