What we know and don’t know about Innisfil shooter Chris Doncaster
The Star has identified Chris Doncaster, 23, as the gunman dead after killing two South Simcoe police officers in an exchange of gunfire" inside a home in small town Innisfil Tuesday night, according to a source close to the investigation.
According to social media and court and loan documents, Doncaster was living at the home on Somers Boulevard, a quiet residential street near Lake Simcoe; neighbours said he had been living there with his grandmother.
So far, clues about Doncaster's background offer little explanation for what happened inside the home before Const. Devon Northrup, 33, and Const. Morgan Russell, 54, were shot and killed.
Here's what the Star knows and doesn't know about Chris Doncaster:
He was briefly enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces.
In 2020 social media posts, Doncaster's grandmother proudly shared her grandson's enrolment, but his time with the military was short.
A spokesperson for the Department of Defence confirmed to the Star that Christopher Joseph Doncaster was a CAF member from May to December 2020, at the rank of private, with no deployment history.
The individual did not complete basic training," the spokesperson said Thursday, adding that the details of his release from service are covered by the Privacy Act.
He used an SKS rifle, an already controversial semi-automatic weapon.
Special Investigations Unit spokesperson Kristy Denette confirmed the rifle was recovered at the scene by investigators. (The SIU investigates all incidents where a person dies during or after an interaction with police.)
The Liberal government was criticized in 2020 after the Soviet-designed SKS - previously used in the 2019 killings in northern British Columbia - was not part of a ban on many other semi-automatic guns.
The rifle, which was designed in the 1940s and made militarily obsolete by the more famous AK-47, is legal to purchase in Canada, but is easy to modify with a larger, illegal magazine.
The initial call to police concerned a disturbance."
Investigators have not identified Doncaster as the shooter but the SIU has confirmed the person who was killed was a resident of the home, and that a family member in the home made the initial call to police about a disturbance involving the eventual shooter.
The details of that disturbance" have not been released.
He had previously been charged with minor offences.
In 2018 Doncaster was charged with mischief under $5,000, and two counts of failing to appear in court.
The charges were withdrawn.
It's not clear police knew what they were walking into.
It was not immediately clear whether Doncaster's SKS rifle was legally owned and registered, nor whether the responding officers knew it was in the home.
It is also not clear whether they had prior contact with Doncaster, nor whether they knew he was a one-time member of the Armed Forces.
According to South Simcoe acting police chief John Van Dyke, they were shot upon arrival."
SIU spokesperson Denette told the Star Thursday: Based on preliminary information, the two officers did not draw their firearms when they were fatally shot. A third officer who was also at the house exchanged gunfire with the man."
He was active on social media.
Accounts on Instagram, Twitter and the video-game-streaming platform Twitch show Doncaster was interested in mixed martial arts and popular first-person shooter video games.
Photos from this year show him hanging out with friends and flashing luxury clothing items.
In one nighttime photo, posted in September 2021, he can be seen smiling as he sits on a South Simcoe police Jet Ski tied up at a dock.
Another series of posts from 2020 show a brand-new GMC pickup truck - for which he had received a car loan.
In online bios, he described himself as an entrepreneur," saying he'd give away a bitcoin prize if his Instagram follower count - less than 500 - passed 50,000.
Early accounts offer few obvious warning signs.
None of Doncaster's social media accounts nor the comments of people who knew his family have yet offered clear insights into why he might shoot the responding officers.
With files from Simcoe.com