When Umzar Zameer sees his three children smiling, he immediately thinks of the children left behind by the loss of a Toronto police officer, in whose death he has now been acquitted.
Zameer, 34, told CBC’s The National on Monday that while he is relieved at being found not guilty after being charged in the death of Det.-Const. Jeffery Northrup three years ago, he can’t stop thinking about the officer’s family. Northrup, a 31-year veteran of the Toronto Police Service, was also a father of three.
Zameer, an accountant, was found not guilty on Sunday in the death of Northrup, who was hit by a vehicle in an underground parking garage at Toronto City Hall on July 2, 2021. Zameer had pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
A jury delivered its verdict on Sunday — a verdict that left Zameer and his family in tears.
“I felt so relieved. This is the first time I went home, hugged my kids, without any burden on my shoulders,” Zameer said.
“It was a moment which I was blessed [with] after three years. But at the same time, I was thinking about the family of Officer Northrup, his kids, his wife. It’s a tragedy,” he said.
“We are trying to move on. I don’t think we can. I can’t stop thinking about them whenever we see our kids smiling, happy.”
The verdict means the Crown did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zameer intended to kill Northrup, as is required for both a first-degree and lesser second-degree murder conviction.
After the verdict was read, Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy addressed Zameer briefly before exiting the courtroom, telling him he was free to go and offering “my deepest apologies for what you’ve been through.”
In her final instructions to jurors on Thursday, Molloy said there were four possible verdicts based on the evidence: first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter or not guilty of any offence. Zameer was declared not guilty of any charges on the fourth day of jury deliberations.
On Sunday, Zameer said outside the courthouse: “I never meant any of this to happen. I am sorry for what has happened.”
In the interview, Zameer said that when the judge apologized to him, it helped him begin to move on from the events of the last three years.
“I have seen both aspects of evil and good here in the past three years. The length of evil was long, but I think the strength of good was more. And when I heard those words from Honorable Justice Molloy, it motivated me to forget about those three years of evilness, and just think about the goodness of the strength of this day,” he said.
Zameer said he lost hope a couple of times and his faith in Canada was shaken, but his lawyers, including Nader Hasan, renewed his faith in the criminal justice system.
When Zameer was in the detention centre after being charged with first-degree murder, Hasan told him it was likely impossible to get bail on the charge, but Hasan said “we will do whatever we can to get you out.” Once he got bail, Zameer said he never lost complete hope that the truth would come out.
He described his legal team as “angels.” Initially, he had to rely on duty counsels, but said his spirits lifted when Hasan took on the case.
His hope was that the charges would have been dropped before the trial, but that didn’t happen.
When public officials, including Ontario Premier Doug Ford and former Toronto Mayor John Tory, reacted angrily after he got bail, Zameer said it was a frightening time.
“We got scared. We asked Nader if we are safe here in Canada, in these circumstances, and like always, he told us: ‘Hang on, the truth will come, the truth will emerge. You just have to wait. It will take time, but we will make sure the truth will come out.’ I didn’t believe him at the time, but I believe him now. He was right,” he said.
Zameer said he doesn’t want an apology and he still has “massive respect” for the police. He maintained from the beginning that the act of running over Northrup was not intentional, but rather a tragic accident.
While the last three years have been difficult, he said, the most difficult moment was missing the birth of his second child.
He said he called his wife, Aaida Shaikh, from the detention centre when she was about to deliver the baby.
“That was the hardest moment… She was almost delivering. And no one was there. She was all alone in the hospital,” he said.
Legal action hasn’t been discussed, lawyer says
Hasan, for his part, said they have not discussed the idea of legal action as a result of the trial.
“There are a lot of lessons to be learned here from the very beginning: how the case is investigated, the problem of tunnel vision, particularly when it is a police officer who is the victim,” Hasan said.
“There’s the issue of police officers who gave testimony in this proceeding who were lying and what ramifications there should be for those officers and whether it is proper for the administration of justice, for the Crown Attorney’s office to put up, as witnesses, officers who are giving untruthful evidence,” he added.
“There’s also the issue of how plainclothes officers ought to be behaving when approaching civilians, particularly those who have done nothing wrong and who are not or shouldn’t be suspects to begin with.”
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw’s office said Monday that the chief has requested an independent review by Ontario Provincial Police on officer testimony, conduct, procedures, practices and training, which he said police governance “requires” when the courts raise concerns over police conduct. Demkiw has also ordered a review into the force’s plainclothes policies, his office said.
Verdict ‘changed everything for us,’ wife says
Meanwhile, Hasan said he hopes elected officials learn an important lesson about constitutional rights, presumption of innocence and the right to reasonable bail as a result of the case.
“Umar got bail because that was the right decision. It was a weak case then. It’s a weak case now, and I’m grateful that the Canadian public has now seen this case for what it is and for what it always was,” Nader said.
Shaikh, for her part, said: “We want to move on from what happened.”
She said the verdict has changed their lives, adding it “just changed everything for us.”
“Now we’re just looking ahead. We’re happy that we were able to tell the truth.”
Zameer added: “I don’t think I can move on from the incident itself. But I want to move on from these past three years. At least I want to try. We didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”