There’s one clear lesson to learn from the Umar Zameer case

“Let me be crystal clear: I support and accept the verdict,” he said. 

Let me be crystal clear: it is unambiguously good that he said this.

To many observers, including experienced lawyers and the presiding judges, it always appeared obvious that the theory of the crime the Crown advanced was “contrary to logic and common sense” (in the words of Justice Jill Copeland) and “ridiculous” (in the words of John Struthers, a past president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association). Justice Anne Malloy, the trial judge, issued a rare apology to Zameer.

Which has led many members of the public to ask: Why? Why did the Crown, as Struthers put it, “put this guy through Hell on no evidence”?

While it’s good that the police chief has clarified he does not wish an innocent man had been further punished, his explanation of his earlier remarks might give us a clue as to what went wrong here. The Star’s Wendy Gillis reported that he said his earlier comments “were made within the broader context of grieving the loss of Northrup and looking for closure.”

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• Dec 31, 1969
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• Dec 31, 1969
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Hold that thought while we turn our attention to Premier Doug Ford, who had publicly condemned the decision to grant bail to Zameer, and who has since clarified that the “whole situation is sad” and that he was working with “limited information” when he issued his condemnation, though hasn’t expressed regret for it. Asked about it in a press conference Thursday, he took an accusatory tone toward a reporter: “Do you know what I find ironic? You never mentioned Const. Northrup. You never mentioned about his wife Margaret taking care of their three kids and going to raise them without a father. That he won’t go to their weddings, he won’t be able to be with Margaret, the rest of her life. Isn’t it ironic you haven’t mentioned that?”

You and I may struggle to find the irony. But we may see his logic clearly. The Northrup family has suffered a tremendous loss, and is almost certainly experiencing a sense of grief that is near bottomless. That is not hard to understand, or to sympathize with. Recognizing that grief, sharing part of it, hoping to alleviate it, is not the problem. 

But the suggestion of both Demkiw and Ford here that “closure” for the suffering of the bereaved could be brought by the assigning of blame and infliction of pain on someone else is troubling.

No less so because it may be a natural human instinct. The desire to look for someone — anyone — to blame after a tragedy, and to enact vengeance on them, is all too common. But it is among the most destructive of human impulses, the origin of senseless wars and family feuds and untold numbers of crimes. 

That instinct appears likely to be at least part of what drove the prosecution of Zameer. The Crown’s explanation is that they were searching to “determine accountability,” even if the man they were insisting on holding accountable was obviously caught up in a terrible mistake rather than perpetrating a crime. As if inflicting suffering on Zameer and his family would ease anyone else’s suffering. 

Despite the ultimate verdict, they did inflict suffering on Zameer, who was punched in the face while handcuffed on the scene, and who lost his job, his home, many friends and large measures of his freedom during the three years he stood accused.

Former mayor John Tory was among those who condemned Zameer on his release on bail. To his credit, he has acknowledged that was a mistake. ”I have learned from this experience, which is all we can do,” he said. Let us hope we all learn more from it — from the investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police into police testimony that didn’t conform to the other evidence and the “full internal review” of plain clothes practices and from the questions to the Crown about why it ignored red flags in its case to push forward. 

Here is one thing to learn, again: when suffering, the indiscriminate impulse to inflict more suffering often compounds tragedy rather than rectifying it. It may feel like a natural path to “closure.” But it should never be mistaken for justice.