OPP to probe death

'Germaine may have been transient, but she did not have to die that way'

OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino has ordered a full review of how his force handled motorists' warnings about a woman walking along Highway 403.

Germaine Gagnon, 39, was killed April 16 at 8:40 p.m. when she was hit by two vehicles after she tried to run across the highway near the Fiddler's Green Road overpass in Ancaster.

Four OPP officers were only about a kilometre away, but dealing with an incident involving a stolen pickup. They had received two calls about Gagnon walking on the highway within the half-hour before she was killed.

Gagnon's grieving family yesterday demanded an immediate investigation of the OPP's failure to respond to the calls. Fantino ordered the review the same day.

"I am very angry, very hurt," said Germaine's sister Mary Gagnon, 55, of Thunder Bay. "Germaine may have been transient, but she did not have to die that way."

Gagnon, a Cree from the Waskaganish reserve near the James Bay region of northern Quebec who later moved with her family to Moosonee, had struggled with narcotic pill addiction for several years, said her sister Pauline Gagnon, 49, of St. Catharines.

She gave birth to her first of five children at age 15. All of them now live with other families.

Gagnon had been living with her sister in Thunder Bay until January, when she decided to return to Moosonee. But even when she moved around, she always called to stay in touch, Mary Gagnon said.

Six weeks ago, the family learned Gagnon had been spotted in Timmins with a hitchhiking sign for Toronto. Then, she dropped from their sight.

For six days, police did not know who had died on the highway and appealed for public help.

An elderly aunt living in a Hamilton nursing home spotted the media coverage and alerted the family. Police confirmed Gagnon's identity through fingerprints Tuesday.

"They were so sympathetic, so sincere, and I felt good," Pauline Gagnon said.

"But they were hiding something ... It blew me away the next day when my sister said there's more in the newspaper."

Fantino ordered the review after reading an article about the incident in yesterday's Spectator, said Inspector Robin McElary-Downer of the OPP in Burlington.

"He says, like everyone else, 'Hey, we're accountable to the public,'" McElary-Downer said. "'We've got to make sure we have full disclosure of what happened. Did we make mistakes? If we didn't make mistakes, can we learn from this?'"

The OPP did not dispatch officers to intercept Gagnon because all available units were engaged in a high-risk pursuit of a stolen pickup truck, McElary-Downer said earlier this week.

The pickup driver was arrested and charged with possession of narcotics and a stolen vehicle.

McElary-Downer couldn't say how long the review will take, but said Gagnon's family will be privy to all the information when the review is finished.

Gagnon's sisters want to know why the OPP did not ask another police force for help if all their officers were deployed elsewhere. McElary-Downer said protocol in these incidents is for the OPP not to call on a neighbouring police force to check a report of someone walking on a highway. The inspector said, however, part of the review will be about whether the force needs to establish new protocols.

Despite their anger at the OPP, Pauline Gagnon said the family's first priority is to conduct a sacred ceremony where Gagnon died.

"We are going to go there and do smoke so that her spirit will rest."

pmorse@thespec.com

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dnolan@thespec.com

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