A man shot by police during an altercation at a strip mall in the Montgomery area on Tuesday afternoon has died in hospital.
Witnesses say a pickup truck pulled into the 5000 block of 16 Avenue NW at about 3:45 p.m.and was surrounded by several vehicles containing plain clothes police officers who opened fire immediately.
One person was shot by police and rushed to hospital. The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) tweeted just before 8:30 p.m. that the 49-year-old man had passed away in hospital. One other person was taken into custody.
“I was just coming in in my pick-up truck to do a little grocery shopping and I was shocked at how fast things went down, there's a blue crew cab Dodge back there that ripped into the parking lot, cut off a small civilian driven vehicle, and then very, very quickly police were right on it, there were shots fired immediately, there wasn't any hesitation,” said Stephen Gibson, witness.
In a 9:30 p.m. press conference, police stated that they could not comment on the specifics of the incident, as it was now being investigated by ASIRT, but referred to the opiate crisis that is gripping the city.
“A lot of this crime is being fuelled through the opiate issue that we have right now, so if you look at even a year ago when we were out working drugs on the streets, a high majority of our drug use we found would be cocaine and some heroin,” said Acting Deputy James Hardy, Calgary Police Service.
Hardy said fentanyl is now becoming the most common drug, and the crimes related to it are becoming more violent.
“This year alone, the service has responded to well over 4,000 stolen vehicle occurrences which represent a 44 per cent increase over a five-year average. The common feature of these events is offenders who seem to have no regard for life or property,” he said.
This is the 11th incident ASIRT has been called upon to investigate this year, with nine of those taking place in Calgary.
