No one knew John Doe. Not his real name, not his birthday, not where he came from. More than a year after Doe ambushed Toronto police officers with a kitchen knife in a dusty rail corridor in North York, leading one of them to fatally shoot him, all investigators can say is that he was a sex offender with a violent past. The province’s police watchdog released the results of its investigation into Doe’s death Wednesday. Special Investigations Unit director Tony Loparco decided not to charge anyone in the shooting, saying the officer’s fear was reasonable.“The officer was faced with a dangerous and dynamic situation that unfolded quickly over mere seconds,” Loparco wrote in the report.This wasn’t the SIU’s first brush with John Doe, who also went by the aliases of Roy Norman, Chung Nu and Jonathan Grant. His true identity has remained a mystery to law enforcement for as long as they’ve known him.“For at least the last decade, the complainant in this case has been known to police as John Doe with a specified date of birth,” SIU spokesperson Monica Hudon wrote in an email to the Star. “During our most recent investigation, we learned that the complainant’s date of birth had actually been assigned to him by police.”Hudon didn’t say how police knew Doe was the same man without a name or birthday to identify him. The SIU investigated another encounter between Doe and Toronto police five years ago, when Doe approached officers with a “large butcher’s knife” and ignored their requests to drop it.Doe had been rummaging around in a dumpster behind a plaza in Weston at about 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2012. He refused to answer questions, silently pointing the knife and walking towards the officers instead. “As additional officers began to arrive, Mr. Doe walked west toward Weston Rd. with the knife in his right hand, partially covered with a sock,ȁ ...
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