Tasered suspect pepper sprays officers
Arrest escalates into confrontation as ‘offenders are becoming more … violent’
In a sign of what city police call the increasingly desperate nature of crime in Calgary, two officers were pepper sprayed by a suspect they had repeatedly Tasered.
What began as an arrest over a stolen vehicle on Penbrooke Drive S.E. early Wednesday morning became a confrontation with a man armed with pepper spray and a knife, said Insp. Kelly Campbell.
After the occupants of the stolen car fled police, they ditched the vehicle at Fonda Court S.E. Two officers followed their tracks through fresh snow and confronted a man at 36th Street and Memorial Dr. He pulled an object from his pocket, leading one of the officers to taser the man.
But it had no effect and “the man then pepper sprayed both officers directly in their faces.”
Despite being Tasered again, the man continued to pepper spray the officers, then attempted to flee while holding a large knife.
By then, two back-up officers had arrived with handguns drawn.
“He was asking our members to shoot him, that in itself shows our officers have to make decisions in split seconds,” said Campbell.
A third blast from a taser took the man down and he was arrested, with the officers being treated on the scene by EMS for pepper spray exposure.
Campbell said the episode shows the restrained professionalism of city police and the increasingly volatile nature of criminals and increases in violence, stolen cars and weapons use.
“These offenders are becoming more and more violent, they just don’t want to surrender and are putting our officers in these situations,” she said.
“I commend these officers for battling through.”
It’s not entirely clear if the suspect wanted to commit suicide by the hands of police, she said.
What is obvious, said Campbell, is the officers’ judicious use of weapons.
“I can’t say what he was thinking but I know what he told our officers,” she said.
“We do our best to use the least amount of force as possible.”
Last year, city police led the nation with 10 officer-involved shootings, five of them fatal.
In Wednesday’s incident, a woman was arrested near the car that had been stolen with its keys inside March 3 in the Mayland Heights area.
She was found with a baton, a small quantity of marijuana and a backpack full of 50 pieces of mail believed stolen form 50 different people.
Brittany Anne Manning, 18, is charged with possession of marijuana and will next appear in court April 26.
Erik Richard Couronne, 22, was arrested on 36 outstanding warrants and is facing 12 more charges, including two counts of assaulting a peace officer with a weapon, three counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and two counts of resisting arrest.
He appeared in court Thursday.
These offenders are becoming more and more violent, they just don’t want to surrender. … I commend these officers …