Police not at fault in fatal Dominion City shooting: IIU

Manitoba’s police watchdog says the actions of an RCMP officer who fatally shot a 33-year-old father outside his home in Dominion City were “reasonable.”

The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba released its report on the Jan. 14 incident Thursday.

Police were sent to the man’s home at about 8:30 a.m. after the man’s wife called 911. He had threatened to kill his entire family, grabbed some knives from the kitchen, left the home and then tried to get back in after she locked the door, she told the IIU.

The IIU did not identify the man, but the Free Press previously reported it was Cory Wiebe. His widow later told the IIU she had taken him to Boundary Trails Health Centre, which is located between Winkler and Morden, for mental health issues a few days earlier. She told investigators she found an empty bottle of alcohol beside her husband on the morning he was killed, that he had also taken pills in a suicide attempt, and that he had injected himself with testosterone.

Wiebe tried to drive a vehicle through the closed garage door, so a Mountie blocked the driveway, officers told the IIU. Wiebe had as many as three knives on him while interacting with police officers on his property and at one point retrieved one an officer had seized, the report said.

A male officer shot Wiebe after he kept walking towards him with a metal pole, refusing to stop and drop the weapon. Video confirmed Wiebe walked in the officer’s direction while holding the pole, the report said.

One officer told the IIU he believed the pole was from the damaged garage door.

Toxicology reports found Wiebe had ethanol, cocaine, benzoylecgonine, cocaethylene, lorazepam, sertraline, desmethylsertraline, ketamine and rocuronium in his blood system.

“I am of the opinion that the subject officer’s actions were reasonable in the circumstances. Therefore, no charges are recommended, and the IIU investigation is now completed and closed,” IIU acting civilian director Bruce Sychuk said in the report.

Wiebe’s widow, Chelsea Lakatos-Wiebe, told the Free Press in January that he was originally from Winnipeg. He was a loving husband and father who had had four children, including three from previous relationships, and three stepchildren, she said.

The couple were slated to celebrate their second wedding anniversary in February and had been together for five years. Wiebe, a diamond driller whose job took him out of province for weeks at a time, was the family’s sole provider, Lakatos-Wiebe said.

She said Wiebe had a long battle with mental health issues, which were exacerbated when the family was displaced by an accidental fire at their home nearly two years before his death.

In January, she questioned why he wasn’t admitted to a facility for mental health care.

“They should have kept him and made sure he was safe,” she told the Free Press.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca