ASIRT clears Calgary police officer in February shooting of suspect in Temple

March 18, 2024 Canuck

Alberta’s police watchdog says a pair of video recordings and an audio recording make it clear a Calgary officer acted appropriately when he shot a suspect brandishing an airsoft gun late last month.

Calls began coming into 911 around 7 p.m. on Feb. 29 regarding a man armed with a gun attempting to carjack, rob and/or assault multiple individuals at multiple locations.

According to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT), a nearby Calgary Police Service officer found the suspect along Temple Drive N.E., with what appeared to be a gun still in his hand.

The officer pulled over in front of the suspect.

ASIRT says the officer had both the dash cam in his vehicle and his body-worn camera activated.

As such, there are recordings of what followed, ASIRT says.

Those recordings show the officer giving orders to the suspect, who ignored them and kept coming closer with the apparent firearm in his hand.

They show the suspect acting erratically, handling the apparent firearm and waving it around.

And they show the officer backing up and around his vehicle, continuing to give orders to the approaching suspect until he was about to lose his cover.

The officer fired three times, hitting the suspect once in the leg.

No other force was used.

Two additional Calgary Police Service officers arrived and helped provide first aid to the suspect.

The suspect was ultimately taken to the hospital for his injuries.

What had appeared to be a gun turned out to be an airsoft gun.

In its report, released to the public on Monday, ASIRT said the officer who shot the suspect acted as he needed to.

“Only once the cover was about to be comprised, with the (suspect) about to circle behind the vehicle, did the (officer) fire his weapon. The (officer) had exhausted his options by already issuing numerous lawful commands and attempting to create a safe distance from the male,” the ASIRT report states, in part.

“A police officer has the same protections afforded civilians when defending themselves. … In this situation the (officer) resorted to lethal force when faced with a member of the public who was confronting them with what presented as a lethal weapon,” the report goes on to say.

“An examination of the gun afterward determined it to be an airsoft gun. This is immaterial to the legal analysis. The gun presented as a real weapon and the (officer) was justified under the circumstances as treating it as a lethal threat.”

ASIRT says the video and audio recordings led to a particularly efficient investigation.

“Due to the presence of two different video recordings documenting the actions of the male with the gun, as well as a clear audio recording of the officer issuing numerous lawful commands, the (officer) is cleared by ASIRT,” the report states.

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