Sep. 12 will be remembered as a one-day shootout in three municipalities that left four dead, two wounded and many others dodging bullets.
If not for a jammed gun here or a gunshot off by a centimeter there, the death count of Sean Petrie, armed with a handgun and a “generous” amount of bullets, could have been far greater than the three people he already shot to death, the first of which was popular Toronto Police Const. Andrew Hong, 48.
If not for the heroics of both Hamilton and Halton Police officers, who took the 40-year-old out, who knows how high the death toll could have been.
In clearing police officers who eliminated this threat in a Hamilton cemetery in a wild gunshot amongst the gravestones, Special Investigations Unit (SIU) director Joseph Martino talked about how close Petrie was to killing at least eight people he shot at in close range, starting with the motorcycle cop Hong, who was ambushed inside a Mississauga Tim Hortons.
Petrie then shot an innocent man in the carjacking before heading to Milton where he shot and killed his former boss, owner of MK Auto Shakeel Ashraf, 38, and employee Satwinder Singh, 28 while narrowly missing two other staffers, who furnished police with Petrie’s cell phone number which later helped Hamilton Police locate him at a York Blvd. cemetery.
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Petrie was heavily armed for battle that day and wearing a bullet proof vest during his marathon of murder. His motive still unclear, one thing now clear is he had many targets beyond Hong who he spotted go into the Tim Hortons and who he made eye contact with and nodded at him before coming out of the bathroom in a gutless sneak attack. Petrie shot Hong in the head, then chest, while trying to take his gun.
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Hong was not the only police officer he would try to kill.The SIU report says Petrie shot at two officers, who took cover in the cemetery while returning fire. He surprised two Hamilton officers who were still working off the an incorrect description and just wanted to talk to a man standing next to a Jeep Cherokee.
Petrie shot at her.
“At the sight of (Petrie) firing a gun in her direction (she) yelled, ‘Gun,’ ran for cover behind a tree, drew her weapon, and returned fire,” said the SIU in its report.
Hearing “gun” and hearing the shots, her male partner “found cover behind a tree, about 13 metres south of the (partner’s) position, and fired back.”
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Even when officers arrived with more tactical firepower, Petrie was not done trying to inflict more carnage. He “was found to be wearing a ballistic vest” which “was capable of stopping .40-calibre bullets, but not rifle ammunition. Two extended magazines, each fully loaded with ten .45 calibre cartridges, were also found in his front pants pockets.”
Police, some using Glock handguns and some C-8 rifles, fired at least 50 rounds in response. Petrie was found to have two more fully loaded rounds in the pockets of his pants.
“Armed with C-8 rifles, the officers advanced shoulder to shoulder in a northwesterly direction up a small hill towards a tree and began to fire at (Petrie), located northwest across a plot of land containing several rows of graves and gravestones,” said the SIU. “By the time the gunfire ended (Petrie) had fired seven times, emptying his magazine in the process … It appears he ditched the empty magazine with the intention of inserting a fully loaded one. He was incapacitated by gunshots before he could do so.”
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But he did a lot of damage prior to that. He tried to do a lot more. There easily could have been more police funerals as well. Instead, the police stopped this killer before he could hurt anybody else.
“It is not altogether clear which bullets from which police firearms wounded” and killed Petrie but Martino ruled while “most” of the “wounds were the result of ammunition discharged by the HRPS tactical officers” the “possibility that one or more of the rounds fired by the HPS officers contributed to (Petrie’s) injuries cannot be excluded.”
The SIU said “as there are no reasonable grounds to believe that any of the subject officials comported themselves other than within the limits of the criminal law when they fired at the Complainant, there is no basis for proceeding with charges in this case. The file is closed.”
What Martino was trying to say is these Halton and Hamilton police officers were heroes on that deadly day, Sept 12, 2022.
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