Police urged to study options for less lethal weapons: inquest judge Man fatally shot during 2020 attack on father after Taser fails By: Erik Pindera Posted: 4:40 PM CDT Friday, Jun. 28, 2024

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This article was published 28/06/2024 (760 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A judge has recommended Winnipeg police study less-lethal weapons used by other Canadian police forces, following an inquest into the fatal shooting of a man with mental health issues who was likely high while attacking his father with a knife.

Judge Julie Frederickson, who oversaw an inquest earlier this year into the March 10, 2020 death of 27-year-old Adriel Shworob, also recommended the Winnipeg Police Service consider whether intermediate weapons given to tactical officers should be given to patrol cops, in her report released Friday.

In addition to pistols, Winnipeg patrol officers carry batons, pepper spray and Tasers, which are considered intermediate weapons; tactical officers also have access to “less-lethal” firearms that shoot foam rounds intended to stop people but not kill.

The judge recommended other police services’s use of less lethal weapons be studied to determine whether the type Winnipeg officers use reflect best practices.

A Winnipeg Police Service officer, identified in the inquest report as Const. Desmarais, shot Shworob once at 4:47 a.m. after she and another officer tried three times to shock him with a Taser, as he stabbed his wounded father on the bloody and snow-covered pavement of Kowalsky Crescent in the Charleswood neighbourhood.

He was rushed to Health Sciences Centre, where he was pronounced dead.

Frederickson found that the officer had “no viable options” other than to shoot the man, after the Tasers failed.

Shworob had been using large doses of psilocybin — psychedelic or “magic” mushrooms — in the weeks preceding his death, which his parents and doctor raised concerns over, and Frederickson noted he had unaddressed mental health concerns, having self harmed not long before the shooting.

The province’s police oversight agency, the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba, probed the shooting and deemed it justified in a May 2021 report. The IIU’s director at the time noted Shworob was believed to be high on mushrooms during the attack; his dad told the agency that Shworob, normally loving and caring, became a “monster” when on the substance.

 

The dad also said he suspected Shworob had schizophrenia. He had previously had a psychotic episode and stabbed another person about 10 years before.

A toxicology report did not detect drugs or alcohol in his body, though the laboratory did not have a specific method to test for the psychedelic components in mushrooms.

“Adriel Shworob was a much-loved son and brother. He was thoughtful and cared deeply about others and animals. He had plans to move to Indonesia and open a yoga school,” wrote Frederickson in her report.

She said the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled his plans to move abroad, resulting in Shworob moving in with his father Kim Shworob and his partner Vivian Ellis.

The incident began when Adriel woke up his father and Ellis in their bed around 4:30 a.m., biting his father and not responding when asked what he was doing. Ellis called 911.

Shworob had scissors in his hand, which his dad and Ellis were able to grab, before he went downstairs and got a kitchen knife. He stabbed Ellis before the couple was able to disarm him. The knife was thrown down the stairs but Kim Shworob was unable to throw his son down the stairs, too.

The couple went downstairs and outside, where Kim Shworob told Ellis to run. Before she could do so, Shworob ran up and grabbed his dad from behind and grappled him to the ground, stabbing him in the right eye and elsewhere on his face and body. Some of the attack and the shooting were captured on surveillance video. A neighbour described the attack as so vicious that she at first thought an animal was attacking someone.

Four officers arrived at the scene, seeing the victim in his housecoat not moving with his son on top of him. The police yelled at him to stop, but he did not acknowledge their presence.

One officer tried to pull him off, but he continued attacking his father. Another officer tried to kick with with no success. Desmarais tried to use the Taser on him twice after an officer noticed the knife. A second officer tried, ineffectively, as Shworob continued to attack his motionless dad.

Desmarais pulled out her gun and shouted for him to get off, but he did not acknowledge her and continued the attack, so she shot him once in the back.

“What we do know is — given the situation the officers faced — a Taser was not likely to be effective. In fact, it wasn’t.”–Judge Julie Frederickson.

Kim Shworob survived the attack and testified at the inquest, asking that WPS use-of-force training be reviewed. The judge said she was satisfied with the training based on the evidence presented. The victim’s father also expressed concerns about Tasers. Frederickson said she had questions around the viability of Tasers in such situations and noted tactical officers have access to other intermediate weapons.

“If the responding officers had a different intermediate weapon, would that have been successful? It is impossible to know. What we do know is — given the situation the officers faced — a Taser was not likely to be effective. In fact, it wasn’t,” Frederickson wrote.

The judge also wrote in her report that video evidence of the attack was helpful, but needed the supplementation of witness testimony to tell the full story of why police responded as they did. She also found that testimony helped explain why police did not appear to offer first aid other than to place him in the recovery position; patrol police at the time did not have trauma first aid training.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca