Report sheds light on dramatic hostage rescue

A report by the province’s police watchdog says officers made a split-second decision to try to free a woman in a hostage-taking that ended with officers fatally shooting a man.

Methamphetamine was found in the 52-year-old man’s system, the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba said in a report released Monday. The shooting happened inside an apartment suite at 25 Furby St. on the afternoon of Dec. 28, 2023.

The Winnipeg Police Service has previously said the man, whom they did not publicly identify, was a person of interest in the slaying of Delta, B.C., truck driver Farah Mohamud, 34. Mohamud’s body was found in a suite on the fifth floor of the same apartment complex on Boxing Day 2023. The IIU report does not mention the slaying.

A 23-year-old man escaped the hostage situation via a balcony. A member of the WPS tactical support team convinced the hostage-taker to release a 33-year-old woman and a three-year-old child while talking to him for two hours through a hole in the door made by a police battering ram. The ram failed to knock the barricaded door down.

Officers used a drone to monitor the man as he continued to hold a 19-year-old woman at knifepoint. At times, the man was pushing her body against the hole and threatening to kill her. The officer who negotiated the release of the two hostages told the IIU he was ready to shoot the man if he could, but the man was always holding the woman in front of him, with a knife to her throat.

The man made various demands, including for a pack of cigarettes, and “would start a countdown for when the task needed to be completed,” the report said.

Police were authorized to try to rescue the woman if there was an opportunity. One officer watching the situation on a video monitor had been given “background information” that the man was previously involved in an earlier hostage-taking that had “significantly injured the hostage.”

When he saw the hostage-taker bend down to the ground, creating some separation from the woman, he told the rescue team to enter.

Two officers said in prepared statements that they believed the man was going to harm his hostage. They both fired four to six rifle shots at the hostage-taker.

A preliminary autopsy report found the man died at the scene from gunshot wounds to the head area, the IIU report said.

The officer who became the primary negotiator once he arrived said he did not know about the sudden rescue attempt until it was underway.

“It is my view that, in the full consideration of the circumstances of this hostage-taking incident, the use of lethal force by the subject officers was authorized and justified by law,” IIU acting civilian director Bruce Sychuk wrote in the report.

The woman officers rescued was held hostage for about five hours. She was interviewed twice by the IIU but did not recall many details about the incident, the report said, except that the man was angry at her for dropping her phone just before he was shot.

The city’s then-police chief told reporters at the time that officers did not know whether the man knew the hostages or how he might have known them, adding he was known to frequent the building.

Danny Smyth also said the dead man had an “extensive” criminal record for violence and weapons offences and was subject to several weapons prohibitions.

The IIU also announced Tuesday that an officer acted reasonably in tackling a shoplifter who suffered injuries, including a brain bleed, on the 2000 block of Corydon Avenue on June 16.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca