TARA BRAUTIGAM
TORONTO (CP) - Police spoke briefly with a suicidal man moments before he threw his five-year-old daughter at least 15 metres from a bridge above Canada's busiest highway, then jumped to his death.
The girl, who was tossed onto Highway 401 Sunday afternoon as horrified drivers could only watch, was treated for internal bleeding. She was recovering at the Hospital for Sick Children.
The province's Special Investigations Unit - which investigates circumstances involving police and civilians that result in serious injury, sexual assault or death - took over the investigation Monday.
Initial reports indicated police officers were confined to the periphery of the overpass but an SIU statement said officers had been "on the bridge and talking to the man."
"It's fair to say at this point that it wasn't a lengthy period of time," Joseph Martino, acting spokesman for the SIU, said in an interview.
Martino could not confirm whether the officers who responded were trained to handle such situations, but said that would be part of the SIU's investigation. He also could not say how many officers were involved.
"The fact that we're involved, no one should interpret that to suggest that we believe the police have done anything wrong at this point," Martino said. "It's simply circumstances in effect which trigger our jurisdiction."
An autopsy conducted Monday on the 48-year-old man determined he died of blunt-force injuries. But the SIU would not say whether he was struck by oncoming traffic or if he died from the fall.
While it was considered a miracle that the girl survived the drop - roughly the equivalent of three storeys - without a single broken bone, Toronto emergency medicine physician Steven Friedman said her injuries were actually quite typical for a girl her age.
"Their bones haven't calcified as much as with adults, so their ribs and bones are more elastic," Friedman said.
"I think the greatest fortune is that the child wasn't hit by a car."
Toronto police Const. Wendy Drummond said the victim's family has requested that the names of the girl and her father not be released.
Insp. Brian O'Connor said Sunday the girl wasn't hit by any traffic and was talkative at hospital.
Police had been trying to track down the man after he left a suicide note and made a number of frantic cellphone calls to his wife Sunday afternoon.
Officers arrived at the scene shortly after a driver phoned to say there was a man dangling a girl over a bridge in east-end Toronto.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...press/20050307/ca_pr_on_na/tot_thrown_highway
TORONTO (CP) - Police spoke briefly with a suicidal man moments before he threw his five-year-old daughter at least 15 metres from a bridge above Canada's busiest highway, then jumped to his death.
The girl, who was tossed onto Highway 401 Sunday afternoon as horrified drivers could only watch, was treated for internal bleeding. She was recovering at the Hospital for Sick Children.
The province's Special Investigations Unit - which investigates circumstances involving police and civilians that result in serious injury, sexual assault or death - took over the investigation Monday.
Initial reports indicated police officers were confined to the periphery of the overpass but an SIU statement said officers had been "on the bridge and talking to the man."
"It's fair to say at this point that it wasn't a lengthy period of time," Joseph Martino, acting spokesman for the SIU, said in an interview.
Martino could not confirm whether the officers who responded were trained to handle such situations, but said that would be part of the SIU's investigation. He also could not say how many officers were involved.
"The fact that we're involved, no one should interpret that to suggest that we believe the police have done anything wrong at this point," Martino said. "It's simply circumstances in effect which trigger our jurisdiction."
An autopsy conducted Monday on the 48-year-old man determined he died of blunt-force injuries. But the SIU would not say whether he was struck by oncoming traffic or if he died from the fall.
While it was considered a miracle that the girl survived the drop - roughly the equivalent of three storeys - without a single broken bone, Toronto emergency medicine physician Steven Friedman said her injuries were actually quite typical for a girl her age.
"Their bones haven't calcified as much as with adults, so their ribs and bones are more elastic," Friedman said.
"I think the greatest fortune is that the child wasn't hit by a car."
Toronto police Const. Wendy Drummond said the victim's family has requested that the names of the girl and her father not be released.
Insp. Brian O'Connor said Sunday the girl wasn't hit by any traffic and was talkative at hospital.
Police had been trying to track down the man after he left a suicide note and made a number of frantic cellphone calls to his wife Sunday afternoon.
Officers arrived at the scene shortly after a driver phoned to say there was a man dangling a girl over a bridge in east-end Toronto.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...press/20050307/ca_pr_on_na/tot_thrown_highway
