Man shot dead by police out of jail less than a week

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This article was published 26/11/2024 (345 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man shot dead Sunday after police say he stabbed an officer in the neck had completed a jail sentence days earlier for assaulting hospital security staff with a knife.

The Free Press has confirmed Jordan Charlie, 24, of Nunavut, was the man killed by Winnipeg Police Service officers at Unicity shopping centre.

Charlie, who was from Iqaluit, was released from custody in Manitoba on Nov. 19 after he pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon, possession of a dangerous weapon and other related offences. He was sentenced to the equivalent of six months of time served.

The charges stemmed from incidents that occurred after Charlie finished a roughly four-year federal sentence and was released from Stony Mountain Institution last year with no way to return home, court heard.

“He’s essentially been stuck in Winnipeg for about a year,” defence lawyer Catherine Rodgers told provincial court Judge Don Slough at a sentencing hearing last week.“He’s been transient during that time, either sleeping rough or staying at the shelter. He doesn’t have any supports here.”

Court heard Charlie was intoxicated by drugs and taken to the hospital by ambulance in February when he was placed on a resuscitation bed, became agitated with security staff and pulled out a small knife.

A security officer who grabbed for the knife suffered a slicing wound to his hand. Charlie was arrested and charged with assault with a weapon.

Charlie was out of custody and arrested again in June after he refused to leave a city transit bus and responding police officers found him in possession of a 17.5-centimetre-long retractable saw.

In July, Charlie was charged with breaching a release order that he not possess any knives after police, who were investigating a stabbing incident in the North End, stopped him riding a bicycle and found he had a kitchen knife.

While serving his most recent sentence, Charlie took steps to connect with the provincial public trustee and other supports “to put him on the right track,” Rodgers said.

“The eventual plan is to get him back to Nunavut,” she said. “Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a lot of good family supports there, either.”

Court heard it was expected Charlie would initially stay in a shelter before any plans could be put in motion to return him to Nunavut.

“He’s essentially been stuck in Winnipeg for about a year. He’s been transient during that time, either sleeping rough or staying at the shelter. He doesn’t have any supports here.”–Defence lawyer Catherine Rodgers

While in prison, “depression got the better of him,” and Charlie attempted suicide, Rodgers said.

“While thankfully, Mr. Charlie is still with us here today, the period of time when his brain was without oxygen has resulted in some lasting brain damage,” she said.

Slough called the situation “really sad.”

“I don’t expect Mr. Charlie started with the easiest upbringing or life and now, as a result of a suicide attempt, there is more damage.”

Two people who knew Charlie told the Free Press he struggled with drug addiction while homeless in Winnipeg.

They, too, said he told them he wanted to return to Nunavut.

“He has been trying to get back for a while now… but he had no money or means to go back home,” said friend Dawn Taylor.

“He had nothing out here. He missed his family.”

“He has been trying to get back for a while now… but he had no money or means to go back home.”–Friend Dawn Taylor

Taylor, who last saw Charlie months ago, said she told him he could stay at her place for a few days or stop by for a meal or a shower whenever he needed help. She said he stayed in shelters and turned to community organizations for support.

“Every time I see him, he tells me he’s trying to get off that drug,” she said, referring to the fentanyl-based street drug known as “down.”

Taylor said Charlie was kind and polite to her.

“He’d walk me home to make sure I was safe. If somebody tried to bother me, he would stand up for me,” she said.

And he would stand up for himself if he felt threatened, Taylor said.

Documents provided by the Parole Board of Canada detail a tumultuous early life for Charlie, whose relatives were affected by the residential school system.

His parents separated when he was young and he spent his childhood in various youth jails, foster-care placements and hotels in multiple communities. He was estranged from his family and fathered multiple children with whom he had limited contact, the documents said.

The parole board said he had a history of mental-health diagnoses, including borderline personality disorder, oppositional defiant disorder (making him hostile to authority figures), an intellectual disability and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

“I don’t expect Mr. Charlie started with the easiest upbringing or life and now, as a result of a suicide attempt, there is more damage.”–Judge Don Slough

Charlie suffered from depression and had cut himself with pieces of a broken mirror, swallowed pens and repeatedly inserted pencils into a surgical wound in his abdomen, the board said.

“His self-injurious behaviour is… usually a maladaptive and impulsive method of seeking connection and affirmation that he is cared for by staff,” the documents said. “When frustrated and angry, he frequently becomes suicidal, or does not refrain from being aggressive toward others.”

Charlie pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, robbery and assaulting a peace officer in Yellowknife in 2019. He was transferred to Manitoba’s Stony Mountain prison to serve his sentence on those charges.

A summary of the incident, prepared by the parole board, said Charlie admitted to plunging a knife into the neck of a stranger during the unprovoked attack in March of that year.

The documents say he approached a man, robbed him of marijuana and stabbed him with a curved, 10-centimetre-long blade. The victim suffered “life-threatening” injuries and required emergency surgery to stop the bleeding and continues to have difficulty swallowing and speaking, as a result.

Two months later, while in custody for that offence, Charlie punched a corrections officer who was escorting him away from court, the parole board said.

“You continued to punch the officer in the face over 20 times, knocking his head against the wall and causing him to fall to the ground,” the documents said, adding the attack continued until help arrived.

The parole board concluded Charlie’s reintegration potential back into society was low.

“Given your violence history; your impulsivity; your vulnerability and the constant display of a lack of restraint/desire in managing your mental health… the board has little confidence that your behaviour in the community will be any different but unmanageable,” it said.

The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba has assumed the investigation into the fatal shooting.

— With files from Chris Kitching

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca