Third fatal police shooting of 2023 occurred just hours before year’s end

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This article was published 02/01/2024 (612 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Three people were shot and killed by Winnipeg police officers in 2023, all in the final five weeks of the year.

City police shot three people fatally in 2022. There were no fatal shootings in 2021, and four people were shot and killed by officers in 2020.

The most recent police-involved shooting happened inside a University Crescent apartment suite shortly before 2:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.

Afolabi Stephen Opaso, 19, died in hospital after an officer opened fire. Jean-René Dominique Kwilu, a lawyer representing Opaso’s family, said Opaso was experiencing a mental-health crisis.

Limited details were released by the Winnipeg Police Service and Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba, which investigates officer-involved shootings.

On Monday, Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth said the man had two knives when two officers entered the suite, and he was shot moments later.

Police said officers were responding to a report of a man acting erratically.

Opaso, an international student from Nigeria, was studying at the University of Manitoba.

His death occurred three days after police shot and killed a 52-year-old man, who allegedly took hostages, including a three-year-old child, and barricaded himself inside a Furby Street apartment suite.

He was with a 19-year-old female hostage when he was shot by the tactical support unit.

Smyth said the man was a person of interest in the slaying of Delta, B.C., truck driver Farah Mohamud, 34, whose body was found in the same building on Boxing Day.

Winnipeg’s first fatal police shooting of 2023 happened in an alley near Pembina Highway and Dalhousie Drive on Nov. 28.

Police said a 39-year-old male driver pinned an officer with a pickup truck while attempting to flee a traffic stop. The driver was then shot by a different officer.

The IIU is investigating the three shootings. The watchdog is also investigating the in-custody deaths of two other men in 2023.

Elias Whitehead, 37, went into medical distress during a struggle with officers at Broadway and Sherbrook Street on Oct. 15. The IIU said he began to have trouble breathing during the incident and was later pronounced dead at Health Sciences Centre.

A witness recorded video of part of the struggle.

Police said officers had responded to reports of a man acting erratically and entering traffic.

On Aug. 7, a man died in hospital after he was arrested and became unresponsive at a home in the 500 block of Oakland Avenue.

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Police said officers were initially called to reports of an armed man behaving erratically near the intersection of Kinbrace Bay and McLeod Avenue.

The IIU said officers were concerned for the man’s health and well-being when he was arrested, and requested medical aid from the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service.

The man became unresponsive while the WFPS was en route, the IIU said.

— with files from Tyler Searle

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.