MANDEL: Defence closes in trial of accused Toronto cop-killer

Article content

A dazed Umar Zameer sat kneeling and handcuffed on the ground of the parking garage exit by his BMW, its side panel stained with the blood of a Toronto Police officer.

Article content

It was just minutes after he’d run down Det.-Const. Jeff Northrup, who had been investigating a stabbing with his colleagues while dressed in plainclothes – and according to the final witnesses, who ironically were both police officers, it seems the accountant offered the same explanation he would repeat at his murder trial nearly three years later.

Article content

“He said a male and a female were hitting the window and door,” Det.-Const. Ryan D’Souza recalled. “The male also said he was scared, he was trying to get away and he said that he had no idea they were police.”

Zameer, 34, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the hit-and-run that killed the 55-year-old officer in the parking lot beneath Nathan Phillips Square on July 2, 2021.

Article content

Article content

During emotional testimony this week, the father of three apologized to Northrup’s family but said he feared he and his pregnant wife and their toddler were being ambushed by robbers when two strangers started banging on his car, demanding he get out, while a dark van “came out of nowhere” and blocked his path.

He wanted to get away as fast as possible and didn’t know he’d hit anyone, he told the jury.

Also a member of Northrup’s Major Crime Unit at 52 Division, D’Souza said he’d responded to the emergency call at about 12:20 a.m. He put on his bulletproof vest that said “Police” and hurried down to the underground parking lot.

Article content

He saw two of his colleagues standing outside their unmarked police minivan with its front end damaged and its airbags deployed. Parked directly in front of them was a dark BMW sedan with both doors open. A pregnant woman was standing nearby, “crying heavily” while holding a young child.

The man kneeling on the ground had a “glazed look on his face,” D’Souza said, as if he were in a “state of shock.”

D’Souza asked Det.-Consts. Scharnil Pais and Tony Correa what happened and they told him Northrup had been run over.

“Run over or hit?” he then asked.

“No, he got run over and it’s bad,” D’Souza recalled them telling him.

Pais has testified that after Northrup was struck, he and Correa followed and rammed the back of the BMW, then placed Zameer under arrest. After handcuffing him, Pais told him, “Get up. You just ran over a cop.”

Article content

Recalled to court Friday, Pais was asked about what Zameer had told him.

“He said, ‘We didn’t know who you were,’ or ‘We didn’t know you were cops,’” Pais recalled.

After noticing blood and flesh on the lower panel below the driver’s door, the officer said he told Zameer, “That’s my partner you just ran over. You just ran over a cop.”

In response, he said the driver told him: “You know there was a stabbing in the area earlier; we were scared.”

When he still didn’t get up, Pais said he punched Zameer in the face area – though defence lawyer Nader Hasan disputed the chronology he gave.

Meanwhile, D’Souza said he took over reading Zameer his rights after Pais was called away. He then proceeded to ask him what happened.

“He said he had recently moved to the country,” D’Souza testified, consulting the notes he’d made about a month after the incident. “He said he also found out that there was a stabbing and he said that he saw a lot of police cars and that he wanted to leave.”

“He then said he saw a black van and a male and a female get out,” recalled D’Souza, who was the final witness for the defence. “He said that he saw the male approach his car and reach into his pocket but again, he said that he didn’t know they were police. He said if he’d known they were police, he wouldn’t have gone.”

With all the evidence now complete, the jury was told they’ll return Tuesday to hear closing arguments.

[email protected]

Article content