Mountie who fatally shot man in Dawson Creek cleared of wrongdoing
Posted November 16, 2016 12:47 pm.
Last Updated November 16, 2016 1:24 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
DAWSON CREEK (NEWS 1130) – The Mountie who shot and killed an armed man during a Site C dam open house in Dawson Creek last year has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the province’s independent police investigator.
The Independent Investigations Office spoke with 18 witnesses and reviewed security video, radio audio and 911 calls of the incident in which James McIntyre, 48, was shot once and killed.
The timeline IIO built shows RCMP got a call about a disturbance, unrelated to McIntyre, at the controversial dam’s open house at the Stonebridge Hotel at 6:34 p.m. However when they arrived 20 minutes later, they found another aggressive man outside the hotel, later identified as McIntyre, who was carrying a knife and wearing a Guy Fawks mask.
IIOC’s Marten Youssef says video and witnesses were a key part of the investigation with nearly everyone saying McIntyre threatened police, lunged at them and tried to stab them and police told him to drop the knife.
“The officers responded with pepper spray. Pepper spray was deployed with no apparent effect and the affected person didn’t comply and was subsequently shot by an officer,” Youssef says.
An ambulance was called a minute after McIntyre was shot and he was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Another request to contact IIO was made 15 minutes later.
The report found police did their due diligence is asking the man questions, telling him to drop the knife and in using other non-lethal means to stop him before resorting to their own guns.
The online hacktivist group Anonymous claimed McIntyre was one of their members and threatened to temporarily shut down police websites and release hacked government documents related to the overseas communication capabilities of Canada’s spy agency.
The RCMP national site and the website for Dawson Creek both went down briefly after the threat. Mounties later said it was a maintenance issue.
The group threatened to go public with more “stunning secrets” unless the government named and charged the RCMP officers involved in the shooting.
Alaska Highway News reporter Jonny Wakefield says the community was shocked by the initial news.
“There was a lot of shock initially when people learned what happened and then in the coming days when the Anonymous angles came out,” he says. “Since then some people have wondered why it took so long for them to reach a decision on this, but by and large, it was something that wasn’t top of mind of most people but it was the biggest news to hit the community in a long time.”
