SIRT-NL releases findings in officer-involved shooting in St. John's
SIRT-NL has concluded that the use of lethal force was measured and appropriate in relation to an officer-involved shooting that took place on the morning of June 12, 2023.
On that morning the RNC notified the Serious Incident Response Team of an officer-involved shooting that had occurred moments earlier in St. John’s. The affected person visited the Employment Centre at Regatta Plaza on Elizabeth Avenue in St. John’s. Knowing there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest, the Employment Centre staff contacted the RNC. Two RNC officers responded to this call. When the officers arrived at the Employment Centre, they attempted to arrest the man on an outstanding warrant.
An altercation then ensued, resulting in one of the officers fatally shooting the man.
The man was wearing multiple layers of clothing and had a belt-clipped knife holder on his right hip with no knife in it. There was a wire across the top of his pants. There was a knife on a table next to him. When the paramedics removed his clothing, a second knife fell out onto the floor.
In this case, when the man was rapidly running towards the officer and the officer was rapidly moving backwards to try to maintain distance, his ability to continue to disengage was quickly precluded because the officer had literally ‘hit the wall’ and had nowhere else to go. In addition, numerous other civilians were sheltering in place in the office and therefore the officer had a duty to ensure that the man could not pose a threat to any of those civilians.
In the final analysis, SIRT-NL states that the use of lethal force was measured and appropriate given their independent and objectively held evaluation of the immediate harm that the man presented at the time the officer discharged his firearm.
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