Witness in fatal police shooting changes statement, delays start of long-awaited inquest

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This article was published 08/08/2016 (3726 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A long-awaited inquest into the fatal police shooting of an indigenous Winnipeg man suffered yet another delay before it began Monday because of new information from a witness that could raise additional questions about police conduct.

The information came to light Friday, and it contradicts what the witness previously told police about the events surrounding the police shooting, said Crown attorney David Gray, who is acting as counsel for the inquest.

What the witness had to say “went to the heart of what was alleged to have occurred,” Gray said, so the inquest can’t proceed until the witness can give a new statement, which may then have to be investigated further, he said.

It’s been eight years since 26-year-old Craig Vincent McDougall, an Oji-Cree man, was shot and killed by police outside his family home on Simcoe Street. Gray and lawyers for the Winnipeg Police Service and the McDougall family all told Associate Chief Provincial Court Judge Anne Krahn they didn’t want to see more delays, but this is an unexpected circumstance.

“No one’s happy about the fact this may be delayed. This is not a situation that anybody wanted,” Gray said.

The judge is set to resume the inquest next week. But there are logistical questions that need to be answered before then, including which agency can take the new witness statement in a case that involves Winnipeg police. It may have to be handled by RCMP, an out-of-province police force or the province’s Independent Investigation Unit (IIU), which was formed last year to investigate serious matters involving police in Manitoba.

Lawyer Corey Shefman, who isn’t charging the McDougall family for his representation, said it’s “a little bit ironic that part of the reason we’re looking at a further delay is because this took place so long ago that the IIU wasn’t in existence at the time.”

Speaking to reporters outside court Monday, Shefman said a witness has changed her statement “essentially 180 degrees” from an earlier statement given to police.

“This new evidence potentially brings to light (police) conduct which needs to be investigated, and so as I said in court, Brian and the McDougall family’s interest is that this is done right. So while we’re very much opposed to any delay, if a bit of delay means doing it right, we’re willing to take that.”

The mandatory inquest wasn’t called until 2013, six years after Craig McDougall was Tasered and shot four times by police, who said he had a knife he refused to drop. Police said at the time that a knife was recovered at the scene, but witnesses said Craig wasn’t armed and had only a cellphone in his hand.

McDougall was reportedly intoxicated and distraught at the time, and the girlfriend he had been speaking with on his cellphone just before it happened has said she heard police shouting at him to drop a knife.

The Winnipeg Police Service spent two years on its initial investigation into the shooting, and a subsequent 14-month external review by the Ontario Provincial Police deemed the shooting justified.

The delays have already been “outrageous,” Shefman said, suggesting systemic racism is part of the reason the inquest has taken so long to get underway.

“This inquest is the first in Manitoba to look into what role, if any, systemic racism played. But I think it’s important that we look at not just the role that systemic racism played in Craig’s death, but in what happened after Craig died. I think that if it took eight years to call an inquest for someone who didn’t look like Craig, I think there might have been a lot more outrage. I’m glad that clearly people are paying attention today,” he said.

“People need to be aware that Canada and Manitoba and Winnipeg have a real problem with race; particularly our indigenous communities face these issues every day,” he added, saying the delay is “incredibly difficult for the family.”

Earlier this year, Krahn delivered an oral decision in favour of expanding the scope of the inquest into McDougall’s death, saying the inquest will look into whether systemic racism within the police force had anything to do with the young man’s death. The inquest won’t investigate racism among individual officers or within the police force in general. Instead, it will examine how institutional police policies may have led specifically to McDougall’s death.

McDougall’s father, Brian, was present in court with other relatives and band councillors from Wasagamack First Nation, a community about 600 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg on the shore of Island Lake. He and his family have asked for privacy, but Shefman read aloud a statement on Brian McDougall’s behalf outside court Monday.

“We’ve been waiting for eight years. For eight years, we haven’t had answers. When I was taken to the ground and put in handcuffs by police as Craig lay in front of me in the yard, I asked the officer who had his knee on my back if my son was breathing. I didn’t get an answer. This inquest is our first chance to get answers and I’m looking forward to hearing all of the evidence and the recommendations that the judge will make at the end. I don’t want what happened to our family to happen to any other family. When Craig was growing up, our family was close in Wasagamack. Craig enjoyed spending time with his grandfather on the family trapline and participating in other traditional customs. Growing up, Craig heard stories about his uncle, J.J. Harper, who fought for respect and justice for our people. My family is grateful that our lawyer, Corey Shefman from Boudreau Law, has volunteered his time to represent us. We know that most families in our situation won’t be so lucky. We hope that in the future the government will treat families at inquests more fairly than they treated our family because we have seen how important it is to have an advocate in the inquest system.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

 

 

From the courtroom

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Video: McDougall family speaks out

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