Much emphasis was placed by Toronto’s Chief of Police, Toronto’s Police Association President and even Premier Doug Ford on a report authored by members of the Ontario Provincial Police with respect to their review of the fatal collision whereby Constable Jeffery Northrup was killed in the underground parking garage of Toronto’s City Hall on July 2, 2021. The driver of the BMW car that struck Northrup, Umar Zameer, was originally charged with murder. In the subsequent trial Zameer was found not guilty. It was explained by Zameer at trial that he did not realize that the two plain-clothes officers (Northup and Forbes) were police but that they were criminals intending to rob him. Thus as the officers surrounded his vehicle he attempted to escape by accelerating quickly out of his parking spot.
At trial two reconstructionists, one from the Toronto Police Service and the other retained by Zameer’s defense both came to similar conclusions as to how the collision occurred. They both opined that Northrup was knocked over near the left-front fender of the BMW while it was reversed by Zameer. Northrup fell down and then the BMW rode over top of his body when Zameer accelerated forward. The presiding judge, Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molley, expressed her concern when two other plain-clothed officers, Constable Antonio Correa and Constable Scharnil Pais, collaborated the testimony of Constable Lisa Forbes that Constable Northrup was standing in the lane with his hands up, in front of the BMW when he was struck.
Justice Molley stated:
“…all three officers would have to be wrong about this detail in exactly the same way for this theory to make sense. That also raises an issue of whether, if they were wrong about where he was standing, they may also be wrong about if he was standing in front of the BMW at all. When three versions of an event are wrong, and wrong in the same way, you must also consider whether there has been collusion between those witnesses. All of the officers denied collusion. As I described to you earlier when dealing with eyewitness testimony, one witness can honestly mis-remember an event, particularly when the event was traumatic or shocking in nature. Ladies and gentlemen, it is possible for one officer to have a memory of Officer Northrup standing in front of the vehicle in the middle of that laneway with his arms raised to his chest level and his palms outstretched, even if that memory is not accurate. It is for you to decide if it is possible for three officers to have that same mistaken memory”
I have not had an opportunity to examine the evidence except through the comments made about the trial and what was contained in the OPP report following the trial. This does not negate the following opinion I express because my opinion only focuses on the specific OPP analysis of the impact contained in their report.
The portion of the OPP report discussing their findings about the impact is shown in the text and figure below.
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The OPP text accompanying the above photo states “The OPP reconstructionist marked a green arrow that indicated the principal direction of force of the BMW to Detective Constable Northup during the collision”. If the reconstructionist had any rudimentary understanding of Newton’s Third Law of Motion (“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”) he should have understood that the travel direction of Northrup’s body would be opposite to the direction of force exerted on his body. So, clearly, Northrup’s body would travel along the same line as the green arrow but in the opposite direction, or towards the centre-rear of the hood. This is not arguable opinion, this is basic science.
The following set of four photos show a re-enactment of a pedestrian’s motion during a frontal impact by a passenger car typically known as a “wrap trajectory”. Such a trajectory has been well-known for many decades in the collision reconstruction community. Because this re-enactment is from a scenario where the pedestrian and vehicle are both stopped it cannot fully depict the pedestrian’s body moving or sliding rearward up the hood and toward the windshield that would occur in the dynamic scenario where the striking vehicle is in motion. But the general dynamics are there.
The basic point of this enactment is to show that the centre-of-gravity of an adult pedestrian is generally above the leading edge of the grille/hood of passenger cars and this causes the pedestrian’s body to travel onto the hood while the lower legs are struck and carried in the direction of the striking vehicle. It has been reported that Constable Northrup was six feet four inches tall and this would be substantially taller than a typical adult.
If Northrup’s body was on the hood of the BMW and the BMW was reportedly in high forward acceleration Northrup’s body would continue to travel rearwards with respect to the striking vehicle. And if the principal direction of force was at the angle depicted in the OPP figure then Northrup’s body would travel rearward and to the right with respect to that hood.
The additional factor is that the BMW was at a state of being steered hard to the left at the time of contact. If the principal direction of force was as shown, the turning of the BMW would be progressively toward Northrup’s body and this would also be the mechanism by which his body would be expected to move toward the right and onto the BMW’s hood.
In this scenario the body would exist on the hood for a substantial time and distance. Northrup’s body could not just magically fall to the ground in a split second. And if Northrup’s body was carried on the BMW’s hood for a reasonable time the point where Northrup’s body was run over would have to be a substantial distance forward of where the OPP determined the initial contact occurred. However the OPP report indicated the following:
“The OPP reconstructionist concluded Detective Constable Northrup was standing at the BMW’s front left corner when the BMW accelerated forward, struck Detective Constable Northrup, plowed him along the ground, drove over him and fled the scene.“
So how could Northrup’s body end up under the front end of the BMW if his body was moving in a direction toward the right and rear of its hood and his body was being carried on that hood? This is simply impossible. This is not just a bad reconstruction, it is a terribly bad reconstruction.
Who were the police individuals who signed the OPP report and what experience did they have in analyzing pedestrian collisions? This has not been revealed but it is a crucial point. Such basic errors in physics are appalling and why they occurred must begin with an understanding of the background of these individuals.
This is likely why the testimony of Constables Forbes, Correa and Pais was not believed by the court. And this is why both the Toronto Police Service reconstructionist and the defense reconstructionist both agreed on the general scenario that Constable Northrup was not standing up when the BMW accelerated forward and struck him.
Consistent with the previous actions of Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford, he was quoted by news media saying that “Maybe the judge should apologize”. No the judge should not apologize, Premier Doug Ford should apologize for accepting the OPP analysis without understanding that it was flawed. The OPP should apologize to the public for allowing such a report to be written in the name of the OPP.
Toronto’s Police Chief, Myron Demkiw, made a bad decision that made matters worse. He made the decision to invite another police agency to conduct an investigation about members of his own force. Anyone in the policing community would recognize that the public has never trusted a situation where one police force investigates another. This is why an agency such as Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) was created so that there would be some arm’s length separation between police agencies protecting their own kind.
Historically there have been many problems with the SIU and these were going to be corrected by recommendations made by Justice Michael Tulloch in an April, 2017, 263-page report encompassing seven months of research and resulting in 129 recommendations. The liberal provincial government was going to enact the Safer Ontario Act at that time encompassing most of Tulloch’s recommendations and this became law in March of 2018. But the Progressive Conservative party came into power in June and Doug Ford scrapped the law.
In March 17 and 19, 2026 articles posted by CP24 News of Toronto there were a number of views provided about the OPP report. It is not surprising that the lawyer for Zameer, Nader Hasan, reportedly called the OPP report “profoundly disappointing, reckless and irresponsible”. Nasan called out Chief Demkiw who appeared to support the OPP’s findings as Demkiw stated;
“This report is about allegations that our members faced, and it speaks to that investigation, which, quite frankly, again, I’d encourage everybody to read. It is very thorough and comprehensive as it relates to those allegations and the vindication of our members facing those allegations.”
This is an occasion where those collision reconstructionists, whether they be employees of the police, or private consultants, need to speak up and point out that the analysis of the OPP reconstructionist about how the impact occurred is greatly wrong and against accepted, basic science.
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