1 week Ago By CBC
Manitoba's police watchdog says there are "no reasonable grounds" to support charges against an RCMP officer who fatally shot a 51-year-old man near La Broquerie last May. On May 24, 2024, around 12:30 a.m.
, Steinbach RCMP officers were patrolling an area on Highway 52 near La Broquerie — about 60 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg — after receiving multiple reports of a suspicious person nearby, according to a report released Tuesday by the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba. Officers spotted a vehicle stopped in the area, and saw a man reaching into the vehicle and choking the female driver while holding a knife, according to the report. The woman, who was interviewed by the watchdog agency, told investigators that while driving in the area, she saw the man acting erratically and rolled down her window to ask if he was OK.
He told her "they are trying to get me," before grabbing her throat, she said. The woman suffered minor injuries during the assault, police said in a news release issued at the time. The investigative unit interviewed five police officers, two of whom were at the scene at the time of the shooting.
They said the man was told several times to drop the knife, but continued to move toward police without dropping the weapon, the report says. That's when one of the officers shot him. Police, the fire department and paramedics provided first aid, but the man was pronounced dead on the side of the highway.
In addition to the police officers, the IIU also interviewed three civilian witnesses, including the driver of the car. The officer who shot the man declined to be interviewed, but provided investigators with his notes. According to his notes included in the report, the officer said the man was known to police and had outstanding arrest warrants.
The officer's notes said the man was "moving aggressively" toward him while holding the knife, and that the man lunged at the officers after repeated demands to drop the knife. The notes say the officer fired his gun twice. The investigative unit said it hasn't yet received a final autopsy report, but a preliminary report determined that the gunshot wounds killed the man.
A toxicology report found methamphetamine in his system, the report says. Although the final autopsy report is not yet available, Bruce M. Sychuk, the IIU's civilian director, decided to publish the unit's findings "to be accountable to the public in a timely manner," the report says.
Sychuk's report says he has found the officer's use of lethal force was justified in the circumstances. He wrote that, after reviewing the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to support charges against the involved officer. The watchdog unit says that it will consider any new evidence from the final autopsy report, but its report states the investigation is considered complete and the case has been closed.
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