Police share why home invasion suspect wasn't arrested at hospital | Hanomansing Live

Okay, let's get a legal perspective on the issues raised here. Joining us now, Toronto criminal defence lawyer, Tanya Kent. Thank you very much for being on the program. You know, in hindsight, it seems so obvious. There's a shooting, the suspects escape, someone comes into a hospital and they have a gunshot wound. Why wouldn't that be enough for police to arrest them? So... The thing is, the police have to have some sort of reasonable suspicion. So the idea is what I understand now is that the police didn't even know that someone had been shot during this home invasion. So if the police have no belief that someone was shot during this home invasion, the fact that someone walks in to a hospital some distance away from the area with a gunshot wound to his shoulder is not reasonable grounds or reasonable suspicion to arrest someone or even hold them for investigative detention. Yeah. And so in Ontario, if somebody comes into a hospital with a gunshot wound, the hospital has to report that to police. So that's why they were there. They did talk to the person who had the gunshot wound. Whatever he said or didn't say to them, they didn't have enough information at that point to connect him to the home invasion. What kind of evidence would police need? To arrest someone, I'm not talking specifically in that situation, but police arrive at a hospital, there's somebody with a gunshot wound, what kind of evidence would they need to actually arrest that person? So something that connects them to the situation, as well as some sort of like... Objective evidence of connection to criminality or that particular criminality. So I don't want to think of like an example per se, but if there was information that someone was shot, if there was some sort of descriptor from the individuals that gave a description that maybe was something that this person had would maybe be something to hold them for investigative detention or ask them questions. But I want to be clear. that when you're talking about asking someone questions or whether what he said or didn't say please understand that like people are not obligated to assist the police in any investigation or obligated to make a statement to the police so it might be very well this person simply said nothing and the police also don't have any information so i have no choice but to release Yeah, it's always interesting to me in cases like this, you know, kind of, you know, it is hindsight and hindsight is fine. But we now know that person is a suspect in this crime. The police didn't know that as far as we know at that moment. Right. And so think of a different scenario. What would have happened? If someone goes to the hospital with a gunshot wound who's not connected to a crime that happened somewhere else in the city and who is arrested right away as a criminal defense lawyer, how would you feel if that transpired? If that transpired, I would need to know why the police decided to arrest my client. And I would want to indicate, I would want to ask, what was the reasonable grounds and what was the reasonable suspicion to think that this person was involved in a crime? And further, what was the reasonable grounds that they had to believe that? Because simply the fact that someone was shot is not a crime in itself. And I think people, the public, is confused by that, that seemingly thinking that someone someone being shot is essentially Free reign for the police to just ask all kinds of questions and that they've somehow done something wrong. So that, I would want to know that. And frankly, would probably, if there was no evidence besides only the fact that they were shot, I would be bringing a charter application for sure. A lot of people, from what I understand, in the city of Toronto and beyond, we saw TMZ did a story on this, but a lot of people concerned about how, you know, from their perspective, this suspect was right in the hands of the police and they let him get away. How outrageous this was in their eyes. How do you see it? I don't think that's outrageous because the police simply didn't have that information at the time. So what we would be arguing for, and I think people don't want to say this out loud, we'd be arguing for a state where we would just hold people, thinking that they're maybe involved in something that we don't know what it is, but they're involved in something and holding someone or trying to get them to speak about something, which would go against... All the rights that we have in this country about not making statements either to incriminate yourself or at all and the right not to be held in arbitrary detention, which that would be arbitrary if there was no evidence, simply the fact that I was or not me, but that someone was shot and being held. We can do a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking, but essentially the police simply did not have that information. Yeah, it's interesting, right, because we often hear people invoke charter rights to protect people who are suspects in crime, but those charter rights also protect way more people who aren't involved in crime at all, and I think sometimes, Tanya, people forget that. Tanya Kent, Toronto criminal defense lawyer, thank you very much for speaking with us. Thank you.