The province’s police oversight agency has cleared a London police officer of wrongdoing relating to a lengthy standoff at an apartment building in the city’s northeast end earlier this year.
According to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), at around 5 a.m. on March 11, police responded to a call at 621 Kipps Lane about an unresponsive man who appeared to have been stabbed. The man, later identified as 41-year-old Joel A. Cameron, died from his injuries.
A preliminary investigation led officers to a unit inside the building where two male suspects were present at the time. One of the men complied with officers' demands to exit the apartment, while the other, identified as 42-year-old Adrian Neil Campbell of London, refused, leading to an over 12-hour-long standoff.
The SIU said police attempted to negotiate with Campbell to have him exit the unit, however, he refused to comply, barricading himself inside the apartment. Police were later made aware of several social media posts being published by Campbell during the altercation that showed he was allegedly in possession of a firearm. Over 12 hours later, police decided to force themselves into the unit to arrest Campbell.
Upon entering the unit at around 7:30 p.m., police observed that Campbell had barricaded himself in a bedroom.
When officers forced open the door, Campbell allegedly fired pellets from a shotgun toward police, striking two of them. One of the officers suffered an eye injury, while the other was struck in the left hand, temple, and right forearm. The team immediately withdrew from the unit and both officers were taken to hospital with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries.
Shortly after 8 p.m., officers entered the unit again and deployed several rounds of tear gas into the bedroom. The SIU report noted that Campbell expressed his intentions to surrender after suffering from the effects of the tear gas. He followed police orders to disarm himself of the shotgun and walk backwards out of the apartment.
When Campbell reached the front door of the unit, he was grabbed by officers, forced to the ground, and handcuffed. After his arrest, he complained of pain in his left arm and was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with a forearm fracture.
On Tuesday, SIU Director Joseph Martino announced there are no reasonable grounds to believe the officer who apprehended Campbell committed a crime relating to his arrest and injury.
“[Campbell] had about an hour earlier fired a shotgun at police officers, injuring two of them. And there were grounds to believe that he was involved in the stabbing death of [Cameron]. Given his record of violence that day, the [subject officer] would reasonably have been concerned that [Campbell] might still be armed and capable of causing further harm even after seeming to surrender to police,” read the analysis by Martino.
The SIU file into the case has since been closed.
Campbell, and the other man in the apartment who surrendered, 28-year-old Devon Ferguson-Feit of London, both face a charge of second-degree murder in the death of Cameron. Campbell faces additional charges of attempted murder.
