Alberta's police watchdog cleared an Okotoks Mountie after firing shots at a fleeing vehicle in a 2018 incident.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) released a report Feb. 24 outlining its decision regarding a shots-fired incident involving an RCMP member next to the Okotoks Safeway on April 19, 2018.
The report details the accounts of members of the public and police after an RCMP member fired their gun at a Jeep Cherokee attempting to evade police, striking them in the process.
It also shares the account of the person driving the Jeep, depicted as the Affected Person.
The 15-page account of events begins by depicting an RCMP member in uniform, described as Witness Officer 1 responding to a suspicious vehicle complaint around 8:30 p.m. the night of the incident, where he found the Jeep on a northern side lot of the grocery store and confirmed it was stolen.
He parked behind the vehicle and found a man slumped over the steering wheel.
After another Mountie arrived shortly thereafter, described as Witness Officer 2, the report describes the two approaching the front seat windows of the vehicle from the rear on each side. Officer 1 opened the driver’s side door and informed the suspect he was under arrest for possession of stolen property. Officer 2 had moved around to the driver’s side to join him.
The officer who would later discharge their weapon, depicted as Subject Officer, arrived on scene at this time and was walking toward the Jeep when it started up.
At this point, the report depicts Witness Officer 1 reaching into the vehicle to intervene and a struggle ensuing before the Affected Person put the vehicle in reverse, catching both Witness Officers and knocking them backward and off balance, where they fell to the ground.
The suspect continued to reverse until the Jeep struck the police vehicle, and then put it into drive, heading toward the Safeway wall.
It was then that the Subject Officer fired a shot.
The bullet passed through the rear passenger window and the Jeep continued, jumping the curb and scraping along the wall as it attempted a U-turn.
As it mounted the curb, the Subject Officer fired two more rounds, with one going through the back window and the other on an unknown trajectory.
The Jeep continued, colliding with a parked car along the wall of the Safeway, with the officer firing a fourth shot that struck the driver’s side fender before the vehicle ultimately fled the scene.
The RCMP members returned to their vehicles, the report explains, and began efforts to locate the vehicle, circulating the area and finding the Jeep abandoned “a short distance away”. The suspect was arrested nearby.
The report said the suspect didn't suffer any wounds from the gunshots, and police were not significantly injured from being struck by the vehicle backing up.
ASIRT’s analysis stated in the report is all police officers were lawfully placed and acting in the execution of their duties.
It explained that as the vehicle was completing its U-turn after the first shot was fired, it would take the vehicle in the direction of where the two officers knocked down had last been seen by the Subject Officer.
As two more rounds were fired without effect, the vehicle drove toward the area where the witness officers were believed to be.
The report states “the Affected Person was driving a vehicle in an attempt to escape arrest, and in doing so had caused or at a minimum contributed to the witness officers falling to the ground.
“As a result both witness officers were very close to the vehicle and were vulnerable to being hit or run over.”
This, according to the ASIRT document, provided clear cause for the Subject Officer’s actions.
“There can be little debate that given this, they were in harm's way, and under such circumstances, as then seen by the Subject Officer it was reasonable to believe that both witness officers were in jeopardy of grievous bodily harm or death from being hit or run over by the escaping vehicle,” the report said.
It added video evidence clearly showed the Subject Officer firing in the direction of the driver, rather than at the vehicle.
“The Subject Officer tried to stop the threat posed by the Affected Person by shooting him,” the report reads. “While it is very fortunate that his efforts to do so failed, and no one ultimately was seriously injured or killed in this event, his actions in taking the shots were justified pursuant to section 25 of the Criminal Code.”
The operator of the Jeep, Codie Petrie of Calgary, was sentenced to 140 days in jail on March 29, 2019 as a result of the incident.
