Members of Toronto Police Service are remembering the death of one of their own many years ago.

It is 47 years this month that Constable James Lothian was shot and killed while pulling over a vehicle in the Cabbagetown area of downtown Toronto.

Lothian, who was 28, was killed on January 10 in 1973 by one of the occupants in the car that he was stopping.

He was in the area when he spotted a speeding vehicle that ran a red light, according to police records.

The officer “pursued it until the car ran into the rear of another vehicle on Amelia St., near Rawlings Ave.,” close to Riverdale Farm, records show.

“After leaving his cruiser, Constable Lothian was shot and wounded by one of the occupants of the vehicle,” police said.

The shooter was identified as Brian (Duke) Holmes, who was described as a “drug addict.”

Lothian later died in hospital leaving behind his wife Norma and their son, who would be approaching 50-years-old.

It wasn’t until some hours later that police surrounded a rooming house where they tried to negotiate the surrender of the suspects.

“I had no idea at the time why all of this was happening,” area resident Doug Fisher recalled. “ I did know that I had heard shots and that there were dead people.”

It is reported that Holmes had attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head but was unsuccessful.

Reports state that another occupant in the car, identified as Walter McVicar, shot him an additional two times before he died.

McVicar then turned the gun on himself. A third occupant of the vehicle involved in the original pursuit, a 17 year old girl, was charged with murder but was later found not guilty.

Lothian is among the officers listed in the Toronto Police Service Honour Roll. RIP Officer Lothian.

More than 266 police officers have died in the line of duty in Ontario and are honoured yearly at the Ontario Police Memorial Foundation’s Ceremony of Remembrance.