IIU clears police officer in fatal 2022 shooting

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This article was published 28/09/2023 (772 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg Police Service officer who shot and killed a man last year during an attempted “high-risk” traffic stop did so necessarily, the province’s law-enforcement oversight agency has decided.

Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba director Roxanne Gagné completed her report in July on the agency’s probe into the fatal Dec. 3, 2022, shooting. The document was released publicly on Thursday.

Family members previously identified the man as Jonathon Herntier, 38.

WPS officers obtained a warrant to enter a home on Portage Avenue after learning Herntier, who was wanted on several warrants, was possibly at the residence, the IIU report states. The document notes he was known to be “armed and dangerous.”

Herntier was reported to be leaving the home in a BMW before heavily armed tactical-team officers conducted a “high-risk vehicle stop” at Portage Avenue and Bourkevale Drive.

A tactical officer shot Herntier four times shortly after 7:30 p.m.

The IIU found Herntier was trying to avoid arrest by attempting to push his vehicle through the police vehicles that had surrounded the BMW.

Officers, including the one who fired the shots, shouted at Herntier to stop his vehicle and show his hands, the IIU found, but he continued to rev the engine and move the vehicle before putting it into reverse as eight officers stood around it.

The officer who fired the shots was next to the driver’s side window and reported Herntier appeared to reach into his jacket for a firearm. He legitimately feared for his life and the safety of other police when he fired his service pistol at the suspect, the IIU said.

“(Herntier) had the immediate means to use either the BMW vehicle or his weapon to harm the officers,” Gagné wrote in her report, concluding the officer’s fatal shooting was necessary and authorized under the law.

Police found Herntier was carrying a 9-mm Smith & Wesson pistol in a cross-body holster when they took him out of the vehicle. IIU investigators later observed the gun on the hood of Herntier’s BMW and the holster on his body.

Herntier was taken to the Health Sciences Centre, where he was pronounced dead at 8:13 p.m.