The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team released the results of an investigation into a police shooting that happened in March of 2015 and say the officer's use of force was justified.
At about 11:00 a.m. on March 21, 2015, police were stationed at an anti-racism rally taking place at Calgary City Hall when a man, who is known to them, began to make a disturbance.
Witnesses say they saw three police officers exit one of their vans and begin to walk towards the man, who was yelling racist slogans at the gathering.
Ryan Wellicombe was at the rally, taking photos. He said he first saw the man walking by casually.
“He suddenly just started yelling ‘white power’. He was quite angry yelling and he was quite loud.”
Once he spotted the officers, he began to flee, with the police in close pursuit.
One officer caught up to the man and began to speak to him, but that’s when the man pulled out a length of metal pipe and attacked.
One man, who witnessed the confrontation take place, saw him move to throw something at the officer.
That’s when the police officer opened fire.
The man was injured and was taken to hospital for treatment.
ASIRT officials identified the man as Morgan Thompson and say he was hit by two shots.
Paul Cook, acting as Police Chief at the time of the incident, said that the officer put out a distress call during the scuffle, indicating that he needed help.
“A Code 200 is a major code that we use. It is probably one of the most significantly codes that an officer would call out over the period and, essentially, there is no higher priority call.”
ASIRT has been investigating the incident ever since and says the man clearly presented a risk to the officer so the use of force was justified.
