It’s Monday, Dec. 2, 2013, and a naked and confused Michael MacIsaac is running through the streets of Ajax, Ont.
After concerned witnesses call 911 in an effort to get him help, he is shot dead by Durham police Constable Brian Taylor.
Only two nights before Michael was at a Christmas party and seemed fine.
A little over four years later, his sister and most vocal champion, Joanne MacIsaac, recalls their final exchange.
“The last thing said to me was always ‘I love you.’”
The MacIsaacs believe Michael’s unusual behaviour that morning was likely the result of a seizure. He’d also been running a fever, and was initially prevented from leaving for work by his wife, Marianne.
Eventually he got past her, but without the pants he’d been trying to put on.
Said Joanne, “He didn’t hit her. Nothing like that. He pushed past her and ran into the cold naked.”
The MacIsaac family has always been close, something Joanne attributes to their “rough upbringing.” It was those tough times that helped forge such a solid bond for the Irish Catholic family, which hails originally from the Searston area of the Codroy Valley.
That bond with her late brother is a huge driving force for Joanne as she continues her quest to secure justice for Michael.
‘That was Michael’
Before his tragic death on that chilly winter morning, Michael was a beloved uncle, one with nicknames for everybody who enjoyed playing with his nieces and nephews. He and his wife were going through their fourth round of in vitro because they wanted kids of their own.
Joanne recounts how he played a game on an Xbox with some of the kids. It was only after Michael’s death that the family discovered photos taken by the gaming system of Michael playing with them, and continuing to play alone for a couple of hours afterwards.
“This is two hours after the kids left and Michael is still playing. And it was a dance game, so he was by himself.”
Once the tears abated, the photos of his goofy dance moves eventually had her laughing.
“That was Michael.”
Joanne tells another story of how her brother was a big eater, though somehow always fit. He would drive the half hour from his home in Ajax to his mother’s in Mississauga just for a loaf of her homemade bread.
At family feasts he would routinely abscond with his sisters’ Tupperware and enough food for a week.
That was typical Michael too.
Such treasured memories are a double-edged sword for Joanne and the MacIsaac clan. Along with the lighter memories come the tears.
“He’s left a huge void.”
Although the family still gets together often, even four years later their mother, Yvonne (Ryan) MacIsaac, will still not make Michael’s favourite dishes.
“It doesn’t get easier, oddly. This Christmas we seemed to manage to have a little bit of joy, a little bit of laughter talking about Michael and stuff like that.”
Ready for battle
What they didn’t talk about over the holidays was current and pending legal action.
On Monday, Jan. 8, Joanne’s attorneys issued a letter to Attorney General Yasir Naqvi and minister of Community Safety and Correction Services, Marie-France Lalonde, of her intention to file a motion to change the Canadian constitution.
While she would love to avoid years of a protracted legal battle that will take her to the Supreme Court of Canada, Joanne is more than up for it.
She’s been reaching out to groups fighting for those with invisible disabilities – epilepsy, autism, seniors, hearing impaired and so on.
“The constitutional challenge is filed in my name for Michael but I’m bringing them on for their support because it will benefit all of these agencies a lot,” said Joanne. “I am receiving support.”
She’s also hoping to hear back from the leaders of the NDP and the PC.
“I want them to bring up our constitutional challenge in the Parliament this week. We want them to go after the current AG and ask why he hasn’t responded to us.”
The purpose of the challenge is to force mandatory training for law enforcement personnel. Specifically, the letter asks for an amendment to section 44 of the Police Services Act.
“This training shall include training with respect to crisis intervention and de-escalation of conflicts with individuals who are or may be mentally ill and individuals in crisis.”
Joanne believes that had law enforcement been trained properly Michael would not have died, and that nobody else in crisis needs to either. She also thinks that departments who have committed to voluntary mental health and crisis training are going about it the wrong way.
A couple of experts have agreed with her, including two who testified at her brother’s inquest.
“They both say the same thing. There needs to be a standard.”
Right now, says Joanne, law enforcement’s idea of de-escalation is to first gain control of the situation then try to calm things down. For the ordinary person such as herself, talking with someone in crisis is typically the first resort, not the last.
“De-escalation means to get the situation under control without using any force. You don’t de-escalate by shooting first and then starting de-escalation. That is a problem and that is not just in Ontario. That is country wide.”
Close to home
Joanne is haunted by the belief that her brother died knowing what was going on, just as he started coming out of his seizure. She has copies of audio recordings from the shooting, and takes offense to the person who tried to assist Michael because she had veterinary experience, noting that her brother was a human being, not an animal.
“Michael was only seven doors from home, just around the corner, and it seems then that he was starting to come out of his seizure, and one of the last things that we can hear him say is, ‘Dude I’m cold. Where are my clothes?’”
The seizures were nothing new and resulted from an injury Michael sustained while attending Belanger Memorial Academy in Doyles.
Back then the long-term effects of severe concussion injuries were less well known, and Joanne says her brother didn’t start experiencing seizures until he was in his 20s. The family also believes that a change to his anti-seizure medication may have exacerbated Michael’s confusion that morning.
But whatever the reason for his highly unusual behaviour, he didn’t need to die; Joanne firmly believes some proper training can prevent future shootings of people in crisis.
“After they shot Michael and he was crawling into the street, THEN they said, ‘we’re here to help you,’” said Joanne with evident frustration. “Yes, but it’s already too late.”
Michael’s is far from an isolated case.
Joanne has reams of statistics and data about police involved shootings in Canada. She has become somewhat of an expert herself as a result, and now families who have lost their loved ones via police shootings are reaching out. She listens to them all, and she’s determined to advocate for them too.
It was Joanne who went toe-to-toe with Lalonde when it came to funding families for inquests into police-involved shooting deaths.
“I said to her the police officer’s lawyer is being funded by the government, the Crown is being funded by the government, everything is being funded by the government – if you do not fund for Michael to have a voice we will not attend, and my mother said she will stand outside every day with a picket.”
And while the inquest delivered a finding of homicide, it carries absolutely no weight.
In fact, Const. Brian Taylor, the officer who shot Michael, has since been promoted.
“No recommendation from any coroner’s inquest involving a police-shooting death has ever been implemented in this province. Ever,” stressed Joanne. “Not one has ever been implemented.”
In addition to the constitutional challenge, the family is also looking at a civil suit, though Joanne says that’s the furthest thing on her mind right now and she and her lawyer may finally get around to it by March.
The family is also looking at a private prosecution, as that legislation is still on the books in Ontario. Joanne says that the family has spent over $55,000 for independent reports to pursue that option.
“We’ve got enough proof that what they said happened didn’t happen, but we also want to prevent this from happening to other families as well,” said Joanne, who admits that may sound cliché but it’s still very much sincere.
No surrender
Fighting a battle on at least three legal fronts can be grinding, but there is no sign of surrender in Joanne. She doesn’t even foresee a day where she might leave the cause, no matter the emotional toll.
“I will be doing it, and crying through it.”
The rest of the MacIsaac clan will stand beside her, fighting together like they have always done, unified in love and in their faith, as untrendy as that may be in the modern age.
Michael still used to pray on his knees every night, and the first thing his mother Yvonne did was run upstairs and grab his rosary. The medical team wrapped it around his hand while he was in surgery.
After he died, Joanne worried so much about her mother she wrote the Vatican and asked that a special prayer be said for Michael. Her heartfelt letter prompted The Pope to send a note of his own, along with a pearl and rose rosary that he had blessed especially for her mother.
Yvonne still carries it with her, just as she did every single day in the courtroom during the inquest. Joanne credits her mother’s strength and faith as instrumental in the years since Michael’s death.
“I don’t know if it will ever get any easier. If we somehow get some form of justice for Michael or we get the truth out there and we make change for people in Michael’s name perhaps.
“Perhaps then it might be a little bit easier but every time you see this on the news, every time this issue comes about you’re reminded of how senseless and unnecessary it is.”
