Jury acquits Mounties on homicide charges
Brother of man shot dead in Whitecourt says it felt like the victim was on trial
Two Mounties exchanged tearful embraces with loved ones after a jury found them not guilty in one of Alberta's first-ever police homicide trials.
After just five hours of deliberation, jurors trying the case of RCMP Const. Jessica Brown and Cpl. Randy Stenger returned Friday morning with not guilty verdicts on each of the officer's manslaughter and aggravated assault counts.
Brown and Stenger began a trial three weeks ago for killing Clayton Crawford, who they shot a total of 10 times during an attempted arrest at a Whitecourt-area rest stop on July 3, 2018.
The Crown argued the officers failed to conduct basic due diligence and mistakenly believed Crawford was a suspect in a previous shooting and not the intended victim. The defence countered that Crawford put the lives of the officers in danger by failing to comply with commands when Brown, Stenger and another officer woke him from a nap at the Chickadee Creek rest area.
The trial was one of the first times in Alberta history that a police officer has been prosecuted for killing someone in the line of duty.
Clinton Crawford, the victim's brother, said the outcome was a bitter one for his family.
“I think it was disgusting, and just shows the low standard police officers are held to, that they can get everything so wrong and make so many mistakes and nothing happens from it.”
Crawford, 31, came to police attention on July 2, 2018, when two men opened fire on a house in the Grande Prairie-area hamlet of Valhalla Centre. Crawford, who police believed owed a drug debt, was uninjured, though rounds struck his girlfriend.
Crawford then fled in an older-model purple Dodge pickup.
An officer investigating the shooting, Cpl. Eldon Chillog, added Crawford's vehicle to a “be on the lookout for” notice, but said he only wanted to speak to Crawford and did not consider him a suspect. Brown and Stenger were alerted to the truck when an off-duty Mountie spotted it parked along Highway 43 near Whitecourt.
The two then drove west with three other officers, eventually spotting the truck at the Chickadee Creek rest stop. Brown claimed she had been told the occupant of the truck was either a shooting suspect or wanted on other warrants. Planning for a “high-risk takedown,” they equipped themselves with hard body armour and carbines and approached the truck in a “stack” of three.
One of the officers noticed Crawford sleeping in the reclined driver's seat and knocked on the window. Brown claimed Crawford then “dove” beneath the steering column. She tried to restraint him after another officer broke the window with a baton, but failed to prevent him from putting the truck in gear.
The truck then sped off. Brown and Stenger fired 12 rounds from a carbine and a pistol, respectively. The pickup came to a stop on the other side of Highway 43. A medical expert testified Crawford would have died from blood loss stemming from a wound to his femoral artery.
Both Crown and defence declined to comment on the jury's verdict.
Outside the temporary courtroom at Bonaventure Writing Centre, Clinton Crawford said it felt like his brother was the one who was on trial. He said Clayton was a hard worker who worked in the oilfield and was a “very devoted and loving father” to his young daughter.
“They would just drag my brother through the ringer on everything. He's the victim here,” he said. “Because he had a bit of a criminal record before, they just used it against the guy, who they knew nothing about when they approached the situation.”