Chief to brief NFL on security measures in wake of truck attack

Edmonton police will brief National Football League security teams on how the service dealt with last year’s attack outside an Edmonton Eskimos game that injured an officer.

At Thursday’s Edmonton Police Commission meeting, police Chief Rod Knecht said he will be speaking at the NFL’s security conference in May after Edmonton police were contacted by the league.

The service was lauded for its response to the Sept. 30 attack, in which a vehicle rammed an officer working outside Commonwealth Stadium and the driver then attacked him with a knife, before hours later leading police on a chase through downtown Edmonton where a rental truck struck four pedestrians.

Police eventually arrested Abdulahi Hasan Sharif, 30.

No one was killed in the attack, and not one shot was fired.

“We’re just going to talk specifically around lessons learned, what we dealt with initially at the stadium,” said Knecht, who was watching the football game in person on Sept. 30.

“They wanted to know how we dealt with that, releasing (information) to the public not knowing the extent of the incident, could there potentially be multiple attacks, etc. Just how we handled it.”

Knecht said the Canadian Football League contacted Edmonton police about a joint presentation for both leagues. Knecht said it was eventually decided the presentations would happen separately.

The service completed a post-incident review of its response last week, he said.

“We can always learn from what we did or didn’t do,” he said. “And we want to share our practices with ... other jurisdictions.”

Knecht could not immediately say exactly where the conference is taking place, but believed it was in the San Diego area.

Edmonton hosts the Grey Cup later this year.

Sharif faces a string of charges in connection with the attack, including multiple counts of attempted murder. While city police officials initially described the events as acts of terror, no terrorism charges have been laid.

Knecht said he’s in “ongoing discussions” with the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSET) about the investigation.

“The INSET people are aggressively investigating,” he said. “They’ve put it forward to the federal prosecutor, and I think it’s in that forum right now. That’s a discussion between I think the investigating unit and the federal prosecutor.”

“From what I know of the investigation, I think the evidence is there to lay a (terrorism) charge.”

He added the service checked in on the victims of the attack this week. “A couple of people still have some issues — one will have longstanding issues ... ( but) the doctors even say she’s doing much better than they anticipated.”