Watchdog clears Saskatoon police in February shooting

Warning: this story contains distressing details.

The serious incident response team (SIRT), Saskatchewan's police oversight organization, says Saskatoon police did not overreact when they shot a man in February.

"In this case, following the application of the facts established by the evidence to the standard established by law, the force employed by the Subject Officer falls within the range that is protected by law, and accordingly, provides no grounds to believe that the Subject Officer committed any Criminal Code offence during the course of the incident," SIRT executive director Greg Gudelot wrote in the six-page report.

 "As a result, no charges will be laid."

Police shot the man on Feb. 4 while responding to reports of an aggravated assault at a house on Lisgar Avenue.

According to the SIRT report, police tried to arrest two women who had left the house. While they were doing that, a man sprinted out the of house carrying a long black cylinder.

Police had information that a man in the house had been arrested before on weapons offences, and had said he'd not go back to jail and would shoot police trying to arrest him.

"The affected person was described as running toward the location of the arrest at a full sprint with the cylindrical object in a two-handed grip before coming to a halt and raising the object to his shoulder," the report said.

"As this occurred, the Subject Officer, a member of TSU [tactical support unit], fired two shots from his carbine, striking the affected person once, causing him to fall to the ground."

Inside the home, police discovered the mutilated body of Lee Perkins of Calgary.

Edin Dion Vrazalica is charged with first-degree murder and offering an indignity to human remains "by mutilating and contorting his body to fit into a Rubbermaid tote for disposal."