The Toronto Star
TORONTO (CP) -- A single pink carnation was all that marked the scene Thursday of a terrifying downtown hostage-taking that left a man dead and two veteran police officers the subject of an investigation for their role in his shooting.
The city’s core froze Wednesday morning when Sugston Anthony Brookes took a woman hostage for 40 minutes outside the country’s busiest train station and held a sawed-off shotgun to her head.
The random attack came moments after Brookes misfired as he shot at, then pistol-whipped, his estranged wife Marlene in an underground food court blocks away.
After refusing to disarm, Brookes was shot and killed by a police sniper in front of Union Station.
A post mortem determined Thursday that the death was immediate and the “result of a single gunshot.”
“It is too early in our investigation to make a decision as to whether an inquest will be held,” Ontario’s chief coroner Dr. Barry McLellan said after the autopsy.
Meanwhile, police uncovered an audiotape on which Brookes reportedly blamed his actions on Marlene, saying “you made me do this, you drove me to it.”
Marlene Brookes remained at St. Michael’s Hospital under treatment for head wounds Thursday, while hostage Nicole Regis, the daughter of Oshawa, Ont.-Judge Greg Regis, was back home in Ajax, Ont., just east of Toronto.
On July 29, Marlene Brookes had filed divorce papers that detailed a pattern of abuse from her 45-year-old husband.
It alleges Brookes threw her down the stairs, threatened her and their daughter at knifepoint and drove around Ajax with a fireplace poker looking for their son.
Raz Sachedina, owner of the upscale drycleaning business where Marlene Brookes had worked for at least eight years, said Thursday she seemed to be doing alright.
Sachedina said he spoke with the Brookes’ daughter, LaToya, 18, but said her 16-year-old son, Clayton, was with a counsellor when he went to visit Wednesday.
“The girl was holding up OK,” he said, adding the boy seemed to be having a harder time.
Sources told the Toronto Star the fatal shot that ended the brazen attack was fired by Emergency Task Force Const. Gord Lusby, acting on orders given by his superior, Sgt. Tom Sharkey, a seasoned veteran.
Both are now the subject of an investigation by the province’s Special Investigations Unit, an arms-length group that probes all civilian deaths involving police.
The unit has also named 19 witness officers.
For officers at the scene Wednesday, shooting Brookes would have been the last option, said Barney McNeilly, a recently retired staff sergeant who spent almost 17 years with the unit.
“We know the subject himself is in the biggest crisis of his life. We know that he is probably thinking with major tunnel vision,” said McNeilly.
“We try to de-escalate, bring him back to reality and we really try our best to build a rapport and use a little bit of empathy.”