More info needed about Sunday's fatal Winnipeg police shooting to decide if lethal force justified: experts
CBC
WARNING: This story details violent events surrounding a fatal police shooting.
The actions of Winnipeg Police Service officers are under investigation after a video of an officer opening fire at a man was widely shared, but former Ontario police watchdog directors and a former top cop say it's hard to know if the use of force is justified based on the 25-second clip alone.
Winnipeg police said officers were at the Unicity Shopping Centre carrying out a project as part of the retail theft initiative on Sunday afternoon, according to a news release sent later on Sunday evening.
At around 5:09 p.m., officers voiced over their portable radios that one of them had been stabbed in the throat by a man, and the suspect had been shot, the release said.
Police performed life-saving measures on the man before he was transported to Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre, where he later died.
"Our officers do not come to work to take a life. They come to work to serve and protect the community," acting police chief Art Stannard said at a news conference late Sunday evening.
It is still unclear what led to the stabbing or how it escalated into the shooting, but video circulating on social media shows two police officers drawing their guns and pointing at a man who is standing just outside a bus shelter in the mall's parking lot.
The video doesn't capture the whole incident, but officers are heard yelling "put it down" and "drop it" as the man walks toward them, and seconds later, they discharge their firearms.
Howard Morton, who served as the director of Ontario's police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, from 1992 to 1995, said police officers are entitled to defend themselves and other members of the public from imminent harm, but the use of force is limited to what's strictly necessary, and from the video it is unclear if the situation meets the bar.
"There simply is not enough information at this point in time to determine that," he said.
Morton said the events that unfolded in the video suggest officers acted "reasonably" in response to the circumstances.
Officers attempted to de-escalate the situation by asking the man to drop what could have been a weapon, but as it is shown in the video, the man approached the officers instead, presenting a "risk of imminent harm" to them.
"Another officer having been stabbed, these officers obviously had a justifiable belief that if they don't do something, this individual is going to come towards them and possibly stab one of them," he said. "It seems they would have no other choice."
WATCH: Raw video of Winnipeg police fatally shooting man near Unicity Shopping Centre:
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