It's not often you hear stories like these.
A police officer in Hamilton, accused of ignoring a call to attend a shooting earlier this year.
32-year-old Kyle Anders was charged with one count of discredible conduct and one count of neglect of duty for not answering a call at a Stoney Creek home back in April.
Four people were shot and killed, including the shooter himself.
Anders was the closest officer to the the scene and was carrying a shotgun in his cruiser, but failed to turn around and respond.
In pleading guilty, he says he remembers his head was 'in a fog'.
His mother-in-law had recently been diagnosed with cancer. His grandmother had a stroke, and his wife, who was 8 months pregnant was confined to bed rest.
Anders was given a two-year demotion, and as a result with forfeit about 38 thousand dollars in pay over those two years.
NEWSTALK1010's public safety analyst and former OPP Commissioner Chris Lewis says whatever was happening at home, shouldn't really matter.
"There's no excuse to not respond to a call. You get a call for service, you go." says Lewis. "Different poeple have different challenges in their lives, I get that. But those are just factors to discuss at a later date."
Anders gets to keep his job, and Lewis points out that it's nearly impossible to fire a police officer in Ontario.
"It's not the unions, more the appeals court that makes it so difficult. We can't even fire officers that were convicted of impaired driving."
And that's something that Lewis would like to see changed.