Father’s testimony at inquest offers new details on 2008 police shooting of Craig McDougall

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This article was published 07/11/2016 (3351 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A long-awaited inquest into the police shooting death of a 26-year-old Winnipeg man began Monday with indications that, in the minutes before his death, the man called police to falsely report he’d been stabbed.

Six minutes before Craig McDougall was shot and killed by police in the front yard of his West End family home, someone used his cell phone to call 911 and report he’d been stabbed in the leg. The male caller didn’t identify himself to dispatchers. The phone was reportedly in McDougall’s possession at the time, but no stab wounds were found on his body. His account of why he may have called police will never be heard; less than two minutes after police arrived on scene to investigate, McDougall was Tasered and shot three times.

More details about what happened before and after his August 2008 death are emerging as part of a mandatory inquest unfolding over the next several weeks before Provincial Court Associate Chief Judge Anne Krahn.

Craig’s father, Brian McDougall, may also have called police in the hour before the shooting – to ask for help dealing with his own son. Brian, now in his 50s, took the stand Monday, but his recollection of the events from eight years ago was spotty and his testimony had to be halted due to his health concerns.

He testified he didn’t recall phoning 911 at 4:34 a.m. on Aug. 2, 2008. A recording of the call was played twice in court. In it, a man calling from the McDougalls’ home address first tells the dispatcher a bunch of guys are trying to break into his house. Later, he says they were already inside the house, being loud and breaking things and he wants them out. He names one of them as Craig McDougall.

Brian McDougall, who uses a wheelchair and became ill during the proceedings, said “I don’t think so,” when inquest lawyer Crown David Gray suggested Brian was the 911 caller.

He appeared to have trouble remembering much of what happened leading up to and following the shooting. But his memory of seeing his son on the ground outside their house and not knowing whether he was still breathing has stayed with him through the years.

McDougall testified he had gone to bed in the early morning hours of Aug. 2, 2008, while other people remained inside his house. At some point he was woken up after shots were fired, he said.

“I remember going outside, running downstairs and trying to figure out what’s going on,” said McDougall, whose first language is Oji-Cree.

“I kinda yelled, trying to get to him,” he continued, under questioning from his lawyer, Corey Shefman.

“A police officer stopped me right in my tracks.”

Brian was tackled to the ground and held there by an officer who had his knee on the back of Brian’s neck. He could see Craig on the ground and wondered aloud if he was still breathing, but received no response. He said he didn’t see any paramedics or anyone trying to help Craig. Brian was put in a police cruiser, taken to the Public Safety Building, questioned and later told his son “didn’t make it,” Brian testified.

Winnipeg police fatally shot Craig in the front yard of his Simcoe Street home – three of the officer’s four shots fired hit him. He’d been Tasered twice, with one of the Taser probes later found lodged in the left side of his stomach and another found at the scene of the shooting, Winnipeg Police Service identification unit Const. David Mathews testified. Mathews’ team also found a “large kitchen knife” at the scene.

The inquest isn’t designed to lay blame for McDougall’s death – an external review has already concluded police were justified in shooting him. At issue is whether anything could have been done differently that may have prevented Craig’s death, said Shefman, who is representing the McDougall family.

During a break in court before he had to be excused from his testimony, the Free Press asked Brian McDougall what he hoped the outcome of the inquest would be.

“I don’t know. Maybe find what really happened,” he said.

The question of why this mandatory inquest took so long to begin will have to be answered, lawyers said in court Monday. The inquest wasn’t called until 2013, six years after McDougall was Tasered and shot 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. 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 inquest was delayed again this summer after one of the witnesses who was expected to testify contradicted an earlier statement just days before the inquest was set to begin, bringing to light new information that required further interviews. Former Winnipeg Police Service chief Keith McCaskill is expected testify via video link Tuesday.

This inquest is also expected to be the first in Manitoba to consider what role, if any, systemic racism played in the police shooting. The widened scope was granted based on a court motion Shefman launched on behalf of Craig McDougall’s father, Brian. The family is trying to raise money toward their legal costs after their requests for provincial funding for legal representation at the inquest were denied. Shefman filed a pending complaint with the Manitoba Ombudsman, arguing the funding was unfairly denied in this case.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay