A man accused of running over a Toronto police officer nearly three years ago recounted, through tears, the moment he thought his family was being ambushed by criminals during his trial on Thursday.
Umar Zameer has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Det.-Const. Jeffrey Northrup, who died after he was hit by a car in an underground parking garage on July 2, 2021.
Zameer was in downtown Toronto with his pregnant wife and young son to enjoy Canada Day festivities, court has heard.
As he was preparing to drive his BMW out of the parking garage around midnight, with his family inside, Zameer said he saw a man and a woman in plain clothes rushing towards the car.
The woman knocked on the car window and pointed downwards.
Zameer said he didn’t understand what the downward gesture meant. He was unsure whether the woman was asking him to open the car or roll down the window.
“I thought they [were] trying to rob us,” he said. The pair did not identify themselves as police, he added.
He said he quickly pressed a button to lock the car doors. The moment he did so, he said the pair started banging on the car.
“They were shouting so loud, ‘stop, stop, get out the car,'” he recalled.
The banging was so loud that his two-year-old son, sitting in a car seat in the back, started to cry.
Zameer said he started driving forward to move away from the pair and get out of the parking spot. The moment he did so, he said a dark grey van “came out of nowhere,” blocking him.
“I was so scared,” he said. “I thought, it’s not just two people. It’s this whole gang.”
He said his wife, sitting next to him in the passenger seat, began hyperventilating.
“I remember she couldn’t even pronounce my name properly,” Zameer said, adding that he worried the fear had started her labour.
He said he looked back, rested his hand on his crying son’s knees and reversed the car.
Only when he reversed did the banging and shouting stop, he said. As he drove forward, he noticed what he thought was a speed bump, he said.
As he proceeded to drive toward the parking garage exit, he said he told his wife to call the police, fearing the van would follow them. He had seen police in the area earlier in the night.
“I thought they would immediately come down and save us,” he said.
Defence say officer’s death was tragic accident
Court has previously heard that Northrup and his partner — both dressed in plain clothes — were investigating a stabbing when they went into the garage underneath Toronto City Hall. Zameer was not involved in the stabbing.
Crown prosecutors allege Zameer chose to make a series of manoeuvres with his car that caused Northrup’s death, but the defence says the officer’s death was a tragic accident.
Defence lawyers say neither Zameer nor his wife knew the people who approached them in the largely empty parking garage were police officers.