Police shoot, kill driver accused of pinning officer after fleeing traffic stop

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/11/2023 (653 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg police officer shot a man accused of pinning another officer with a truck in an alleyway in Fort Richmond early Tuesday morning.

The 39-year-old man died in hospital, the Winnipeg Police Service said. His name has not been released.

The Independent Investigation Unit, the civilian agency that probes serious police incidents including deaths in the province, has taken over the investigation.

At mid-morning Tuesday, Winnipeg police officers had cordoned off a stretch of the rear lane of the street, behind an apartment block at 40 Dalhousie Dr., just east of Pembina Highway.

A black pickup truck, which remained behind yellow crime scene tape, had been driven into a fence dividing the apartment’s parking lot and the rear yard of an adjacent house. The fence was partially collapsed.

Three police emergency medical kit bags sat discarded in the centre of the lane along with a piece of clothing, where the fresh snow was disturbed and muddy.

Winnipeg police said officers had tried to conduct a traffic stop near Pembina Highway and Dalhousie Drive at about 12:40 a.m. The IIU said the attempted stop occurred in the rear lane off of Dalhousie Drive.

The vehicle’s occupants tried to flee, resulting in an officer being pinned with the vehicle, according to police. Another officer then shot at the driver, a man, before he was pulled from the truck and given first aid, police said.

The 39-year-old man was then taken to the Health Sciences Centre in critical condition, where he died, the IIU said. The officer who was pinned was injured and taken to hospital in stable condition.

Maria Kushnarova, 21, was in the apartment she shares with her husband at 40 Dalhousie Dr. shortly after 12:30 a.m. when she saw the reflection of flashing emergency lights, which she at first assumed was a fire.

“I saw lights from the police car in my window, and I heard screaming — not words, just, ‘Hey, hey.’ I went outside because the lights looked like a fire,” Kushnarova said.

“The police were trying to drag a person from the car, they were trying to drag him from the driver’s seat.”

The driver then accelerated and turned, striking the fence, Kushnarova said.

She went to wake her husband up, and did not see what happened next, but when she looked again, police were looking around the truck and dragging an unconscious person from the vehicle.

Kushnarova said she saw one person taken to a police car, while officers were performing chest compressions on the other person on the ground in the alley.

“Then more police came,” she said, adding she did not hear any gunshots. “Like five, six cars.”

Kushnarova said police asked her what she and her husband saw after the incident. “I asked them, ‘What is this? And they just said, ‘A bad guy tried to escape police,’” she said.

A woman, who was a passenger in the truck at the time of the stop, is still in custody. Police have not said whether she has been charged or released her age or name.

Neither police nor the IIU have said what led to the attempted traffic stop.

The IIU said its investigators went to the scene to begin the agency’s probe “immediately.” The agency has also requested the Manitoba Police Commission appoint a civilian to monitor the investigation, which is standard in fatal cases.

The agency has asked anyone with information or video footage to call investigators at 1-844-667-6060.

The death of the man Tuesday marks the first fatal shooting by Winnipeg police this year.

Last year, city police shot three people fatally. There were no such incidents in 2021, and officers fatally shot four people in 2020.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca