Lethal force justified in axe confrontation: police expert

Two city police constables who fatally shot a man when he confronted them with an axe at the door of his northwest home three years ago were justified in using lethal force, a high- ranking officer told a fatality inquiry on Wednesday.

Calgary Police Service Insp. Ross Butler, an expert in training and use of lethal force, said assailant Peter Spiewak had the ability, intent and means to cause death or serious bodily harm to the officers or others present at the Citadel home on the evening of Oct. 20, 2011.

“Here, the ability was the axe that Mr. Spiewak was in possession of. My opinion is the axe was capable of easily inflicting serious if not fatal injuries if struck by it,” Butler said.

“Intent to cause harm can be from what they say, body language, expression. I believe Mr. Spiewak’s intent was clear for a variety of reasons. He made a comment to ( 911) dispatch that if police showed up, he’d confront them with an edged weapon. He’d arm himself with a knife ... as it turned out it was a devastating weapon — an axe.”

Butler also said when Spiewak, 32, who was schizophrenic, confronted the two uniformed constables — Dave Thomas and Nathan Edwards — there was nothing preventing him from aggressively attacking them. There was no distance between them, no shield and no cover.

“He could cover the ground in less than a second to be on Consts. Thomas,” Butler told provincial inquiry counsel Wilma Shim.

Court heard previously that Thomas fired one shot before he tripped and fell backwards, striking his head on a rock in a flower garden, and that Edwards fired five shots as Spiewak came outside the home with the axe above his shoulder.

Butler said the officers followed police procedure in firing as many shots as it took to stop the offender. It is not uncommon for someone to continue their attack for a few seconds after first struck.

“There’s a myth that when an individual gets shot, he falls down,” said the witness. “Really, a handgun is ineffective at stopping people. Many individuals can withstand multiple handgun round and still be a threat.

“Bullets have to cause enough internal damage that lets loose a volume of blood to cause incapacitation. That may take several seconds. We routinely see where an officer has to fire five, seven or nine rounds before being stopped.”

Butler said most times officers draw their guns and challenge a perpetrator, he will stop.

In this case, he said, there was no opportunity to deploy intermediate weapons such as OC spray or a Taser, because of the way the incident developed so quickly.

“There are certain instances when an individual is not an immediate threat, the officer has distance and might use it,” Butler said. “But it’s a very narrow category of armed individual when we’d attempt to use a Taser.”

Provincial court Judge Gord Wong will now consider the evidence and decide if any recommendations can be made to prevent similar deaths.