Five police officers involved in shootings return to the job
Five officers involved in shootings this year have returned to their regular duties, according to Calgary police.
Of the 10 officers being investigated by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team for incidents this year, four others are on leave and one has resigned for another career opportunity.
Two of those officers currently on leave were involved in a shooting this week that killed 49-yearold Terrence Weinmeyer.
ASIRT said the incident occurred after police attempted to box in a stolen vehicle in a northwest parking lot Tuesday afternoon.
Police say the driver used a truck to ram two police cars.
Calgary police say it’s standard procedure, when an officer fires their weapon, for them to be placed on a 30-day administrative leave.
During that time, the officer undergoes an assessment with a psychologist to see if they’re fit to return to duty.
Rob McFadyen, acting inspector of the human resources operations section, said a committee then meets to discuss whether that officer can return to their current work area.
“It’s a meeting with everyone involved that would essentially be able to identify any risk factors and just talk about a mitigation strategy, if there was one,” said McFadyen. “Like, is there a risk to place this person in a similar type of environment?”
Calgary has seen nine police-involved shootings this year, up from three in 2015.
“Everybody would agree that one officer-involved shooting is too many, absolutely — nobody is going to disagree with that,” ASIRT executive director Susan Hughson said at a news conference on Thursday.
“Why are the numbers different? There’s not a simple answer to that.”
Hughson added that the reasons for the increased frequency of shootings need to be examined.
“Is it something that should be a concern and should be reviewed and should be looked into by police services? Absolutely,” she said.
However, while there were nine shootings this year, she added, “You won’t know until the investigation is complete. They may all be lawful or justifiable uses of force.”
Calgary police said Thursday they are reviewing “best practices in training and procedures.”
“I know that all the police services in this province are concerned about how their officers are responding,” said Hughson.
“It’s not a good situation for their officers to be in, either, so absolutely I’m very pleased that they’re going to be looking at it to see if there are things that could be done differently or could be done better.”
Doug King, a professor in the department of justice studies at MRU, said he thinks most police agencies do “a pretty rigorous job” in trying to determine whether a police officer might have been in the wrong in using force.
By law, police officers are allowed to fire their service weapons when they think they or someone else is facing imminent, grievous bodily harm or death, McFadyen said.
According to King, police officers are generally trained to use their weapon as a last resort.
“Most police officers are trained that, if they’re confronted with someone using grievous bodily harm against them, that they should consider if they can getting away, leaving the scene, but sometimes that isn’t a reasonable thing to do,” said King.
Of the 10 ASIRT investigations ongoing this year into shootings involving Calgary police members, four incidents were fatal, in addition to one dog that was fatally shot during a high-risk drug operation.