Suspect killed by RCMP near Sherwood Park took hostage, shot at police: ASIRT

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A man shot dead by Strathcona County RCMP in a rainy highway ditch fired a sawed-off shotgun seconds before and threatened to kill a woman out walking her dogs.

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Those details are contained in a report released Thursday by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT), which found the three officers who fired at the suspect were justified in doing so.

“There is no evidence to support any belief that any officer engaged in any unlawful or unreasonable conduct that would give rise to an offence,” ASIRT executive director Michael Ewenson wrote in the report.

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“The force used was proportionate, necessary, and reasonable in all the circumstances.”

The events leading up to the suspect’s death began just after 3 a.m. on Oct. 10, 2022, at the Country Boyz Tempo gas station in Ardrossan, where an RCMP officer spotted a stolen white BMW X5 SUV.

The officer approached with his pistol drawn and saw the vehicle was running with the driver-side window down. The driver ignored commands to turn off the vehicle. When the officer got closer, he saw the driver’s hands on the steering wheel “gripping it so tightly that his arms were shaking,” the ASIRT report states. The officer also noticed a woman in the passenger seat. Thinking it would calm the situation, he holstered his pistol, the report says.

The officer continued to yell commands at the driver, with no response. When he knocked on the door, the driver turned suddenly and yelled, “Bang.” Startled, the officer retreated to his cruiser for cover. He saw what appeared to be a gun emerge from the driver’s window, followed by a yellow-orange muzzle flash and the sound of a shot. As the SUV sped from the parking lot, the officer fired a single round from his pistol, striking its rear driver-side door.

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The SUV and its driver managed to evade police until the following afternoon when officers received reports the BMW had been driving erratically in the rain and hit the ditch on Highway 21, 25 kilometres south of Sherwood Park.

Two civilians stopped to help before police arrived. One was driving to his home in New Sarepta. He pulled over and found the suspect bleeding from the mouth and nose. A woman walking her dogs also came to help. The suspect asked for a ride and began unloading items from the SUV when an RCMP cruiser approached.

The officers shouted for all three to get down. The suspect tried to start the New Sarepta man’s truck but didn’t have the keys. The suspect then began shouting at police.

“I am going to kill this b—-h,” he yelled. “Get me the keys to the truck or I’ll f—ing kill her.”

The woman pleaded for her life.

“(She) laid down and told (the suspect) that she was an old lady who just came out to help,” Ewenson’s report states. “She asked the (suspect) not to kill her.”

Then, the report says, “She heard a gun go off very near her. Within seconds, she heard multiple firearm discharges.”

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Both Mounties at the scene said they opened fire after the suspect fired a shot near the woman. They fired a total of five rounds from their rifles, two of which struck the suspect in the chest, killing him.

Neither RCMP nor ASIRT identified the man. He was 30 years old, lived in Fort McMurray, and had a lengthy criminal record. At the time of his death, he was wanted for failing to comply with release conditions and had 35 outstanding charges before the courts, ASIRT said. He was also prohibited from possessing a firearm.

An autopsy determined the man had carfentanil, fentanyl, and methamphetamine in his system. The woman he briefly held hostage recalled him yelling that he was “not going back to jail.”

She told ASIRT the experience forever changed her.

“She was not physically injured, but after looking down the barrel of a gun, her life will never be the same,” the report states.

Ewenson concluded all three Mounties who fired at the suspect were justified under Section 25 of the Criminal Code, which covers the use of force by police officers, as well as the self-defence provisions in Section 34.

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jwakefield@postmedia.com

x.com/jonnywakefield 

@jonnywakefield.bsky.social

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