Codiac RCMP superintendent questioned about weekend shooting in Dieppe
The Codiac Regional Policing Authority tried but failed Thursday to get answers about the shooting of a 25-year-old woman near the Moncton airport last weekend.
"Sometimes not saying anything is worse than saying something," said chair Charles Leger, who wanted Codiac RCMP to provide information about the shooting that put the Nova Scotia woman in hospital.
The woman will be taken into custody after she's released from hospital, the RCMP say.
Leger said he was concerned the public had been given different accounts of what happened when the shooting occurred last Saturday afternoon on Adélard-Savoie Boulevard in Dieppe.
RCMP initially said in a news release that emergency crews were "fired upon by a woman" when they responded to a report of a single-vehicle crash near the Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport.
On Monday, however, RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Jullie Rogers-Marsh would only say "a weapon was used" by the woman and would not elaborate.
"As far as providing any other details, that's part of the ongoing investigation," Rogers-Marsh said.
The New Brunswick RCMP asked the Nova Scotia Serious Response Incident Team, known as SIRT, to conduct a review of police actions.
It was not clear whether Rogers-Marsh's statement on Monday was correcting earlier information about the case or just making the earlier information to the public less detailed.
Leger asked Supt. Tom Critchlow to provide details at the authority's meeting Thursday night.
"The investigation needs to happen, but the general public needs to be reassured that obviously this happened, there certainly must have been a threat and that you take these things very seriously and you do," Leger said.
"That's why you bring the special response team in from Nova Scotia. The general public obviously want to hear more, but you can't tell them more."
In response, Critchlow read a statement that included no new details.
"Please appreciate that there is an ongoing investigation that needs to unfold," Critchlow said. "We understand the desire to know more and that's what we're working on to determine. When new information is available, we will certainly provide an update publicly."
Critchlow told reporters later that the woman who was shot is still receiving medical care.
"She's currently in the hospital and we have, we will take her in to custody once she is released from the hospital," he said.
Critchlow wouldn't say anything about the status of the officers involved in the incident.
"So what I can tell you is that anything to do with any of the employees it's a personnel matter and that is not public information," he said.
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After the meeting, Leger said he was satisfied his questions will be answered in a timely fashion but felt it was important to ask them, especially given some confusing information from police. The board wants the public to have confidence in the police, he said.
"There's no question, obviously, the circumstances drew this response and I think the RCMP want to understand why," Leger said of the shooting.
"And I've always said this, I mean, officers take their job very seriously and they don't discharge their firearms very often and if they do then obviously there needs to be something very serious that's happening."
