Inquest to be held to review fatal 2021 OPP shooting in Fergus

An inquest will be held to review the 2021 fatal police shooting of a Fergus, Ont., man.

The regional supervising coroner for west region made the announcementTuesday. The inquest into the death of 31-year-old Mathias Bunyan is mandatory under the Coroners Act.

The exactdate and venue will be provided at a later date, the media release said.

In its review of the interaction, the province's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said officers with Wellington County Ontario Provincial Police (OPP)were called to Bunyan's apartment at about 11 a.m. on Aug. 15, 2021.

Officers were responding to a disturbance call and were told it "could be related to possible mental health issues," the report said. They were told there had been several mental health calls about Bunyan in November 2020.

Officers were also told Bunyan was hiding in a bedroom and had knives with him. The SIU report says officers saw him with knives before he hid in a closet. Officers attempted to convince him to leave the closet and surrender but instead, the report says Bunyan left the closet and "came at" one of the officers.

"A knife was in each of the complainant's hands," the report says. Two conducted energy weapons wereused, which did not stop Bunyan, the report said. That's when "theofficer fired his gun point-blank four times."

Bunyan died of a gunshot wound to the chest.

In a decision released Dec. 10, 2021, SIU director Joseph Martinosaid there were "no reasonable grounds" to believe the officer who shot Bunyan committed a criminal offence.

"By the time the [subject officer] fired his weapon, repeated exhortations on the part of the officers to have the complainant disarm himself and the use of[pepper] spray had failed to bring the standoff to a peaceful resolution," Martino wrote.

"Caught in the tight confines of a small bedroom and with nowhere else to go, I accept that the [subject officer]acted reasonably to defend himself when he met the risk of a potentially deadly knife attack with a resort to lethal force of his own."

In his obituary, Bunyan's family wrote that he was a "gentle, loving, smart person whose dream was to have kids and a farm."

"Mathias would hug you so tight that you'd think your head would pop off andhad the most contagious laugh. He loved animals, playing magic cards, life, dancing the polka, all genres of music and Pokmon," the obituary says. "Mathias had a favourite phrase: 'Be kind.'"