Cop shot man to keep ‘friends safe’
Officer testifies at inquest into death of armed bus driver during standoff
A police officer who shot an armed man during a standoff said he fired because the man was pointing a gun at him and moving toward him and other officers.
Const. Jordan MacWilliams of the Delta Police told a coroner’s inquest Thursday he shot Mehrdad Bayrami as he was “advancing” beyond a 20-metre limit set by police commanders.
“I could see he had lowered the gun and now he was pointing it straight at us,” MacWilliams said. “As soon as I saw him pointing it at us, I fired.
“It seemed very deliberate. He was walking with a purpose toward us. I don’t know what that purpose was,” said MacWilliams, who was on “lethal oversight.”
“My focus was that I kept my friends and myself safe,” he said, adding that officers’ heads and legs were exposed as they took cover behind an armoured vehicle.
MacWilliams testified he was wearing a helmet and body armour and was shielded by an armoured vehicle that was 21 metres from Bayrami, who earlier had taken an ex-girlfriend hostage outside a New Westminster casino.
The standoff between police and the 48-year-old bus driver occurred on Nov. 8, 2012, near the Starlight Casino parking lot, where earlier he had forced Tetiana Peltsina into her car and driven her a short distance.
He then dragged her to a paved pathway near the lot before letting her go. But he refused to surrender to police negotiators or to drop his handgun.
MacWilliams said that just before pulling the trigger he had heard an officer say, “Watch out, he’s getting really close” to the 20-metre limit.
And he said he fired after he heard a senior tactical member give a command to deploy a less lethal Arwen gun that shoots rubber bullets.
Bayrami suffered a single gunshot wound in his lower right abdomen and died 10 days later.
In a rare move, the Crown had charged MacWilliams with seconddegree murder, but the charge was later dropped for lack of evidence.
New Westminster Police Const. Cliff Kusch, who testified he shot Bayrami with four rubber bullets, said he hadn’t heard the command to fire the Arwen.
Kusch and other officers said the impact of the rubber bullets made Bayrami take steps backward, but he hadn’t dropped or let go of the gun until he was shot with a real bullet.
MacWilliams said he was concerned for the safety of fellow officers as well as the detectives and negotiators behind them. “And behind us was the Queensborough Landing Shopping Centre.”
In his testimony, Abbotsford Police Const. Pat Dyck said: “Bullets from handguns travel a great distance and they travel until they hit something. Had that gun gone off,” it could have hit one of the officers or “countless residents positioned nearby.”
Earlier an RCMP sniper said he was seconds away from shooting Bayrami before Peltsina could get away from him because he feared for her life. Const. Dan Di Paola testified he knew Bayrami, angry and mentally unstable, had a gun and had already fired it while taking Peltsina hostage.
“I had my finger placed on the trigger and I was setting up to take the shot,” said Di Paola, who was in the turret of the armoured vehicle on lethal oversight.
“My belief was that he was homicidal. I put the scope on 10-power and I aimed it at his head.”