Toronto cop who pointed gun at Black teens in 2011 found guilty of discreditable conduct

An Ontario policing tribunal has found a Toronto police officer guilty of discreditable conduct for pointing a firearm at two Black teens who were then arrested outside the Toronto housing complex where they lived more than a decade ago, overturning the decision of another tribunal which found him not guilty.

The decision relates to an incident dating back to November 21, 2011.

Four teens aged 15-16, two of them brothers, had just left one of the friend’s homes where they had been playing video games and were walking to a mentoring program at a nearby community centre in the Lawrence Manor area, according to the proceedings.

While the teens were still walking through the Toronto Community Housing complex on Neptune Drive where they lived, two officers pulled into the parking lot in an unmarked police vehicle.

The officers — Adam Lourenco and Scharnil Pais- were assigned to the since disbanded Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS), which placed officers in communities with high rates of crime, and sought to reduce crime in part, by enforcing trespassing laws.

Within 30 seconds of their approach, Lourenco had separated one of the teens — identified only as B.A. and had placed him under arrest for not identifying himself.

The officer claimed that the teen spat at him and swore at him, further giving him grounds to arrest B.A. for assaulting an officer. The teen denied that he swore or spot at the officer.

Two of the other teens moved toward Lourenco in response to the arrest and asked him what he was doing. Pais yelled for them to stop and Lourenco then drew his firearm and pointed it at the teens, immediately re-holstering when they stopped moving.

The three other teens were ordered to sit on the ground and were subsequently arrested for assaulting police.

The initial Toronto Police Service discipline proceedings stemming from a complaint to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) spanned 36 days over several years.

In his 111-page decision in 2021, a retired police inspector who served as the hearing officer found that Lourenco escalated the situation unnecessarily, that there was a lack of reasonableness in his actions, and that the arrest of all the teens by the officers was unlawful. He also found Lourenco guilty of discreditable conduct for using excessive force by punching B.A. twice during the arrest.

However the hearing officer found that Lourenco’s pointing of the firearm did not amount to discreditable conduct for using unreasonable force.

Both the officers and the teens appealed the decision to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC), a quasi-judicial police oversight body which hears appeals on decisions about police misconduct.

Lourenco and Pais argued that the hearing officer erred in finding them guilty of misconduct for the unlawful arrest of two of the teens, Y.B. and M.M., and also argued that he erred in finding Lourenco guilty of discreditable conduct for use of excessive force by punching B.A.

Meanwhile, the teens argued that the hearing officer erred in not finding Lourenco guilty of discreditable conduct for drawing and pointing his firearm at Y.B. and M.M.

In a lengthy analysis released on June 28, the OCPC set aside the hearing officer’s analysis on Count 1, the arrest of Y.B. and M.M. for assaulting police, finding the analysis “problematic.”

However the commission, following its own analysis, still came to the conclusion that the officers were guilty of misconduct for the arrests.

The OCPC also upheld the hearing officer’s finding of guilt for discreditable conduct against Lourenco for excessive use of force.

But the commission overturned the hearing officer’s finding of not guilty of discreditable conduct with regards to the pointing of the gun at the two teens.

The three-member panel wrote in its decision that “the Hearing Officer’s analysis is infected by significant errors that taint his conclusion.”

It found that he failed to contend with the relevance of the Equipment and Use of Force Regulation, improperly relied on his own experience in his analysis, and failed to consider the circumstances surrounding Lourenco’s decision to draw and point his firearm.

They found further that the analysis “focused almost exclusively on Lourenco’s subjective perceptions leading up to his drawing and pointing his firearm” and also that “it was open in principle” for the hearing officer to “rely on social context evidence to draw inferences about the encounter between Lourenco and the racialized youth” but limited his analysis of unconscious racial bias to what may have attracted the officers’ attention to the teens in the first place.

The teens in the case became known as the “Neptune 4” and the case drew attention to the issue of carding, a practice which has since been discontinued by TPS.

Speaking before the tribunal in 2021, B.A. said the incident made him feel like a criminal when he hadn't done anything wrong, and had impacted the relationship and tensions between the police and his community. He also said that the initial hearing process – which had only concluded 10 years after the incident at the heart of the matter – should be faster, and that investigations into police misconduct should be conducted by independent parties who are not former police officers.

Lourenco was previously docked 12 days’ pay in the case, while Pais was docked three days’ pay.

However Lourenco could face more disciplinary action with the new finding of guilt.