‘We are in agony’

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This article was published 07/03/2024 (547 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Yemisi Opaso said she will never give up seeking answers about the death of her brother, who was shot and killed by Winnipeg police on New Year’s Eve.

“I’m filled with anger, confusion. I have a lot of questions, I need answers. We want justice for our brother,” said 31-year-old Yemisi about the death of Afolabi Stephen Opaso.

Yemisi and her 36-year-old sister, Bukola Opaso, attended a funeral for the 19-year-old on Thursday.

They said roommates of the University of Manitoba economics student, originally from Nigeria, called 911 on the afternoon of Dec. 31 and reported he was trying to hurt himself with a knife and banging his head on the wall while in the grip of a mental health crisis.

“There’s no clarity, we are in confusion, we are in agony, and we really do need those questions to be answered,” said Yemisi, who travelled from Texas for the ceremony.

Police went to 77 University Cres. at about 2:30 p.m. on that day. The caller told police a man was armed and acting erratically, Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth said during a news conference Jan. 1.

Two officers responded and found a man wielding two knives inside the suite, Smyth said at the time. The man was shot moments later.

An audio clip released by the family’s Winnipeg lawyer, Jean-René Dominique Kwilu, in January appears to document the moments leading up to the shooting.

Police are heard saying, “Drop the knife,” three times in the 26-second recording before three shots are fired. Nine seconds pass between the time the first command is issued and the first shot is fired.

The province’s police oversight agency, the Independent Investigation Unit, has transferred its investigation into the fatal shooting to a police watchdog agency in Alberta.

The IIU said Jan. 10 that its civilian director, Roxanne Gagné, recommended to the justice minister the case be given to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team.

The transfer was to avoid the potential of any perceived conflict of interest, as a Winnipeg officer involved in the shooting is a close relative of an employee of the provincial justice department.

Yemisi said she has been in weekly contact with investigators at the Alberta agency but they have provided few details, including how long their probe is expected to take.

“They’ve been really reaching out, weekly, to give us updates, but they don’t have much to give us. The information they have is limited, because they say an investigation is still going on, but we are hoping they give us all the answers that we need as soon as possible,” said Yemisi, adding the two sisters will meet with an investigator in Winnipeg Friday.

“We don’t want this to take forever. We need closure, we need answers.”

She said she was upset with the police response to her brother’s crisis and would like officers to receive more mental health training.

“You don’t have to shoot a boy going through a mental health crisis,” Yemisi said. “There are better ways to respond to mental health crisis.”

In an interview Thursday, Smyth said Winnipeg police await the findings of the Alberta agency’s probe.

Smyth said he is confident in the police service’s processes and training and alluded to the fact that the vast majority of mental health-related calls are resolved without the use of force.

Last month, Smyth attended a town hall hosted by a number of groups, including the Nigerian Association of Manitoba, to hear community members’ concerns and talk about police practices, particularly for mental health calls, he noted.

Yemisi said she, the family and the wider community are in anguish over Opaso’s death.

“Since Dec. 31, all I’ve had is sleepless nights. I’m always thinking about him, thinking about all the time we had. He was such a happy boy,” said Yemisi.

Opaso had planned to become an investment banker and possibly move to the United States to study for a master’s degree before looking for work on Wall Street, said Yemisi.

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“He always wanted to come to Canada,” said Yemisi, adding that he wanted to join friends who attended U of M.

Yemisi, of Texas, and Bukola, of Nigeria, said their parents were too upset to travel to Canada to attend his funeral.

Although he has no relatives in Canada, he was to be buried in Winnipeg.

— with files from Chris Kitching

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Erik Pindera
Reporter

Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020.  Read more about Erik.

Every piece of reporting Erik 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.