Calgary officers cleared in 2016 fatal shooting
There are no reasonable grounds to lay charges against the Calgary police officers who shot and killed a man as he tried to flee in a stolen truck two years ago, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team said Thursday.
The events leading up to the fatal shooting began two days earlier, when officers spotted a stolen Dodge Ram pickup truck and began conducting surveillance with the intent to arrest the driver, the ASIRT report read.
With marked vehicles staged nearby, officers in unmarked vehicles entered the parking lot of the Montgomery Bowmont Shopping Mall around 3:15 p.m. on Nov. 22, 2016, following the stolen blue truck.
ASIRT executive director Sue Hughson said 49-year-old Terrence Weinmeyer, who was later found to have a significant concentration of methamphetamine in his system, had entered a restaurant in the strip mall at 4:01 p.m. Officers went to arrest him.
Weinmeyer left the restaurant and ran toward the truck, which had been boxed in by two marked and two unmarked police vehicles.
There was less than a metre of space between the truck and an SUV as he jumped into the driver’s side of the truck, shutting the door. With service pistols drawn, one officer ran to the driver’s side of the truck from behind the vehicle while another ran toward the front of the truck, Hughson said.
The officer who approached from the side pulled open the door, putting him in a precarious position if the vehicle was to be put in motion, Hughson said.
Nearby witnesses recalled hearing police shouting commands of either “stop,” “freeze,” or “get out of the car” before the driver put the truck in reverse in what witnesses called a “rapid acceleration,” Hughson said.
The officer at the side of the truck was trapped. He fired twice into the truck cab as the driver’s door became pinned against the SUV, said Hughson.
As this happened, his partner fired three shots at the driver through the windshield, she added.
“The driver sustained four gunshot wounds and the fifth shot went through the truck’s back window,” said Hughson.
An autopsy determined the wounds were the cause of death.
The truck collided with an unmarked Jeep with enough force to push it sideways. A witness told investigators that the truck “would have rolled over anyone in the way.”
At 4:02 p.m. — one minute after officers went to enact an arrest — the call of shots fired was broadcast over police radio. Police provided medical care until EMS arrived and took over. Weinmeyer was
declared dead soon after arriving at hospital.
An uninjured woman was pulled through the passenger-door window and was arrested.
Hughson said the officers’ intent was to arrest Weinmeyer outside of the vehicle.
“Events escalated so quickly that the involved officers did not have the luxury of time, opportunity or alternatives, and the resort to lethal force only occurred in exigent circumstances,” she said.
“This is an example of a file that is comprehensive. There was a lot of stuff to review and it’s always important we get it right and are able to provide the right answers to the families, subject officers and the police officers.”
Court records show Weinmeyer had a long criminal history.
He was released weeks before the shooting on $200 cash bail with conditions, including not to be in a motor vehicle without the registered owner, stemming from two charges of possession of stolen vehicles.
He had also previously been convicted on charges of possession of a controlled substance, possession of stolen property, theft, breaking and entering, assault and resisting a peace officer.
When Weinmeyer was arrested in 2009 in connection with a stolen vehicle, police called him a “prolific car thief ” with a driving pattern that was “a risk to the public.”
“He will flee from police and he has been known to carry weapons, so given his experience with us he was considered high risk,” a police inspector told Postmedia at the time.
But Weinmeyer’s father, William, said his son’s criminal history was the direct result of cognitive issues and addiction to narcotics.
“Terry had mental issues and drug issues, but that doesn’t mean he deserved to die,” Weinmeyer said. “Everyone makes him out to be some sort of gangster, but if they knew him, he wasn’t like that. He didn’t deserve this.”