Police, ASIRT comment on officer involved shooting
Posted Oct 21, 2011 5:11 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Only 80 seconds elapsed between the time officers left their cruiser and shots rang out.
Those are the early finding by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team who also confirmed that 32-year old man police shot was holding an axe at the time of the incident.
“Almost immediately (after the man emerged from the home) a number of shots were fired by both the officers who responded,” says Clifton Purvis, ASIRT’s executive director.
The man died on at the scene from the gunshot wounds.
Police were responding to a domestic dispute call in the northwest community of Citadel just after 10:00 Thursday night when the man emerged with the axe.
According to Police Association President John Dooks, one officer was injured during the incident when he fell and bumped his head.
“He was actually knocked unconscious and his partner was forced to intervene to prevent a more serious injury upon himself or his partner and was forced to used his weapon,” says Dooks.
Dooks says the fallen officer was only briefly knocked-out.
Purvis confirms one of the officers fell during the incident, but it’s unknown whether that happened before or after shots were fired.
The axe the man was wielding was also grabbed by a member of the home and moved back into the house. That didn’t sit well with Dooks who felt they were trying to hide the evidence.
“These are things we don’t want to see in society.” says Dooks, “We’ve seen the effects of this in other communities, and we don’t want to see that here.”
ASIRT confirmed the axe was quickly turned over to investigators by a member of the home.
The two officers involved are now on leave for the next 30 days while ASIRT investigates.
