City police cleared in less-lethal firearm use

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/05/2022 (1244 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg Police Service officer did nothing wrong when he shot an incoherent, intoxicated woman with a beanbag round last year, the province’s police watchdog says.

Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba civilian director Zane Tessler has recommended no charges against the officer for the Feb. 19, 2021, incident, deciding use of force was reasonable, the IIU said Tuesday.

The matter was first subject to a Law Enforcement Review Agency complaint filed March 11, 2021, by the woman, before the IIU was notified in May 2021.

According to the woman’s LERA complaint, she had accidentally gone into the Lorne Avenue home of a stranger, after she’d forgotten the address of a friend, who she was going to give a haircut.

The woman said she realized she was in the wrong place and tried to leave but was confronted and dropped her purse, scattering its contents, before police came “running down the stairs and bean bagged her,” later kicking her, she alleged. She also claimed she wasn’t intoxicated.

The woman whose home she had entered and police who responded told the IIU a different story.

The woman was at home asleep when her children woke her up to say a person was in the house. She rushed down to the basement and saw a woman squatting in a corner with makeup on the floor around her, who said: “Come any closer and I’ve got a gun,” while pointing what looked like a pistol at her.

The woman called police and fled the home with her children. When she went back inside, the intruder was standing at the top of the third-floor stairs, pointing a pair of scissors at the woman, who again fled as police arrived.

From outside, she reported hearing police yell for the woman to drop the weapon and three bangs.

The police who responded to the incident told a similar story. When the officers arrived around 8 p.m., they found a woman upset, agitated and seemingly intoxicated, holding scissors and what appeared to be a handgun, pointing it at the officers and saying “bang bang.”

The officers decided not to deploy a taser, as the woman could fall down the stairs. Tactical officers arrived, and one fired three bean bag rounds.

The woman was arrested, and taken for medical care.

The handgun was a toy — but solid black without the orange markings typically found on such items.