No Peel police officer will face disciplinary action for a shooting last year that saw 19 bullets fired in quick succession in a Mississauga subdivision, killing one man and injuring a bystander and a fellow officer, the Star has learned.

Chief Jennifer Evans’ administrative review into the incident was presented at the Feb. 26 meeting of the Peel police services board and recommended no discipline charges or policy changes, said Peel police spokesman Staff Sgt. Daniel Richardson.

But the review itself into the March 20 shooting that led to the death of Marc Ekamba-Boekwa and that injured Suzan Zreik will remain secret.

Chiefs must present their civilian-oversight boards with the results of their internal review following the completion of an investigation by Ontario’s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit.

Under the Police Services Act, boards “may” make the chief’s review public, but critics say that never actually happens. They are calling on the government to strengthen the legislation by compelling boards to release the reports, at least in the case of fatal shootings.

“The board is supposed to be the voice of civilian oversight in their communities, so in order to facilitate public confidence, in my mind it should be more proactive in releasing these reports, particularly when there's been use of lethal force against a member of the community,” said former SIU director Ian Scott.

A spokeswoman for Community Safety Minister Yasir Naqvi did not return a request for comment on whether the government is looking at increasing transparency as part of its review of the Police Services Act.

The SIU declined to press criminal charges last year against the three officers involved in the shooting. SIU director Tony Loparco said in his report that Ekamba-Boekwa was advancing on officers with a knife with a six-inch blade.

“The board . . . decided to maintain its position of not releasing the chief’s administrative review of an SIU investigation,” newly-elected Peel police services board chair Amrik Singh Ahluwalia told the Star in an email.

During his five-year tenure at the SIU, Scott said he remembers seeing only two administrative reviews, which dealt with the fatal shootings of Levi Schaeffer and Douglas Minty by OPP officers in separate incidents in 2009.

Those reviews were only made public because they were part of a court case that eventually landed before the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2013 that police officers under investigation cannot consult a lawyer before preparing their notes.

“Obviously with the use of lethal force by agents of the state, I cannot think of an area where there's a higher public interest and a greater need for the public to understand what was going on,” he said.

Peel police is also keeping secret the administrative review into another high-profile police shooting — that of Jermaine Carby in Brampton in 2014, in which the SIU said an unnamed police officer removed a knife from the scene that Carby was apparently holding prior to his death.

No criminal charges were laid against the officers involved and the police force confirmed to the Star last year that the incident did not lead to discipline charges or policy changes. Carby’s death will be probed at a coroner’s inquest that begins in May, at which time more information about the shooting is expected to come to light.

Police were called to the scene of the March 20, 2015 shooting on Queen Frederica Dr. after Ekamba-Boekwa’s mother, Boketsu Boekwa, allegedly threatened a neighbour with a knife, according to the SIU.

Boketsu Boekwa then allegedly struck one of the officers on the back of the head with a metal pot. She is currently facing criminal charges, including conspiring to murder a police officer and her neighbour.

In the melee of bullets that ensued, 11 struck Ekamba-Boekwa, one hit an officer who was wearing a bulletproof vest and another struck Zreik, a neighbour, in the back while she was cutting limes in her kitchen.

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Her lawyer, Michael Moon, said the legislation should be changed to force police services boards to publicly release all administrative reviews.

“I'm absolutely not surprised at all,” he said of the board’s decision to keep the review secret. “I think the last thing that Peel Regional Police wants is any degree of transparency on the conduct, or misconduct, of its various officers.”