Cop won’t be prosecuted in fatal shooting
CALGARY — The parents of a man shot dead by Calgary police while he was holding a syringe in a hotel room says they are devastated the officer won’t be charged.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team initially recommended the officer be charged in the March 2015 death of Anthony Heffernan.
But the police watchdog unit said Monday that the Crown determined there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction and no charges will be laid.
Pat Heffernan said his son’s needless death shows people are at risk when they come into contact with police.
Heffernan, who was 27 and a recovering drug addict, was shot four times — twice in the head — in his room at a Super 8 hotel near the city’s airport.
His mother, Irene Heffernan, said she had hoped “clear and just thinking would prevail, but it didn’t.”
“It’s a sad day for all Albertans and Canadians alike,” Pat Heffernan said Monday.
Anthony Heffernan wasn’t posing a threat to anyone and officers didn’t need to go into his room, his family said.
ASIRT said hotel staff had called police when Heffernan failed to check out of his room and, when officers arrived, they found him holding a syringe in one hand and flicking a lighter with the other. He was unresponsive and appeared to be in a druginduced state.
“All of the witness officers stated concerns about the possibility that the syringe might be contaminated and that they might get stabbed or stuck by it,” ASIRT said in a statement. “Although the officers commanded him to drop the syringe, he remained unresponsive, non-communicative, and seemingly unaware.”
An officer fired a Taser at Heffernan but it didn’t work. As a second officer was preparing to hit Heffernan with a Taser, another officer fired his gun six times.
“The subject officer made a quick decision in a volatile and rapidly unfolding situation to use his service firearm in order to defend against Mr. Heffernan,” said a statement from the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service.
“The evidence would be that he did so as a defensive action against an individual who was armed with a syringe, and who had been either unwilling or unable to comply with police directions.”