Jury hears closing submissions at coroner’s inquest looking into police shooting death of Sarnia man

CTV’s Nick Paparella with closing submissions and recommendations from lawyers at the coroner’s inquest looking into the death of Justin Bourassa.

As the coroner’s inquest winds down, all parties involved agreed that the police shooting death of Justin Bourassa, 29, of Sarnia was tragic.

In the early morning hours of Oct. 28, 2021, two London police constables tried to detain Bourassa after mistakenly thinking he was involved in a suspected break-in along Richmond Row.

The jury has heard that prior to the incident, Bourassa had previous interactions with police in other jurisdictions.

After being stopped on the night in question, Bourassa placed one of the officers in a rear naked choke and within seconds the other officer shot him.

Meaghan Daniel, the lawyer representing the Bourassa family, told the jury to consider de-escalation measures like time, distance and conflict avoidance.

“We spent over a week together examining an interaction that lasted only 80 seconds,” she said.

“The Bourassa family lost their son,” she added. “They’ve spent years trying to understand what happened in the final moments of Justin’s life and trying to make meaning from it, otherwise they cannot accept his loss.”

Lucas O’Hara is the lawyer representing the two officers involved, constables Ryan Hednrick, who was choked, and Joshua Ryan, who shot Bourassa.

“Recommendations have to be based on evidence and reality. This was a rapidly escalating encounter where Mr. Bourassa’s conduct changed the situation from an investigative detention into a serious bodily harm or death scenario within seconds,” he told the jury.

Fraser Kelly, the lawyer for London Police Chief Thai Truong told the jury that officers had a duty that night to stop Bourassa.

“When people choose to become extremely violent with police, sometimes police need to use their guns,” he said.

The jury heard 14 proposed recommendations from most of those involved in the proceedings. Inquest Counsel Phil Tsui highlighted several and among them that officers. “Develop scenario-specific guidelines to support de-escalation and conflict prevention in investigative detentions,” he suggested.

The coroner’s inquest jury is expected to start coming up with its own set of recommendations to help prevent any future deaths like that of Justin Bourassa.

The proceedings resume on Tuesday morning.