Watchdog concludes police justified in 2015 Christmas Day shooting

Red Deer Mounties who fatally shot a 37-year-old man on Christmas Day in 2015 after he went on a rampage in a stolen front-end loader acted appropriately, concludes an investigation by Alberta’s police watchdog.

“The force used was necessary and reasonable in all the circumstances, notwithstanding the tragic outcome,” said Susan Hughson, executive director of the Alberta Serious Incident Response Teams (ASIRT), at a Monday news conference.

An autopsy determined the man’s cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. Toxicology results found methamphetamine and amphetamine in the man’s blood, she said.

Red Deer RCMP officers were searching for a man on Dec. 25, 2015, after “several violent criminal offences” were reported at the residence he shared with his commonlaw wife, said the ASIRT report.

Police at the time said that officers had been investigating the sexual assault of a woman and the attempted murder of a man.

The suspect — whose name will not be released by ASIRT — reportedly stole a truck that was later pulled over near Sylvan Lake by an RCMP officer. As the officer exited the police cruiser to perform a vehicle stop, the truck reversed at high speed, ramming into the cruiser.

Hughson said the officer suffered minor injuries.

The man fled the scene in the truck and sought help from friends at a nearby rural residence around 12:50 p.m. When they refused, he drove the truck into their residence and a snowmobile in the yard, said the report.

Mounties found the stolen truck abandoned in the Finning Caterpillar lot in a Red Deer industrial area.

The man had taken control of a front-end loader and proceeded to drive it through the area, over a fence, striking multiple vehicles by ramming them or flipping them over. Police found him in a nearby field driving over hay bales, Hughson said.

The man continued driving the front-end loader through fields and on roadways, including a portion of Highway 2, where he came within feet of vehicles, she added.

“RCMP were extremely concerned about public safety and officer safety.”

Around 1:30 p.m., two officers were setting up a spike belt when the man drove directly at the unmarked police vehicles, the report said.

Both officers tried to reposition their vehicles. One police vehicle was facing the loader head-on and reversed into a driveway. The loader rammed the vehicle into a large tree, pinning the officer inside, said Hughson.

The second officer, meanwhile, had parked and ran towards the driveway. He began firing his service pistol at the man while the first officer escaped from the pinned vehicle. Both officers then fired at the man, but stopped when the loader drove into a nearby field, turning twice in large circles.

Officers in another vehicle drove up to the loader and found that the man was motionless, “slumped on the floor of the cab,” said the ASIRT report.

The loader drove into a treedense area and became lodged, at which point an officer removed the unresponsive man, who was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

“Fortuitously both of the officers who fired were not injured,” Hughson said.

ASIRT investigates cases involving Alberta police that have resulted in serious injury or death, as well as allegations of police misconduct.