Man shot by police in critical condition
A 25-year-old man is in critical condition after he was shot by Winnipeg police in the North End.
Officers were confronted by a man when they were were responding to a home on Charles Street between Church and Machray avenues around 12:15 a.m. CT Tuesday, police said.
Police shot the man. He was rushed to hospital, had surgery and remains in critical condition.
"This is something that no one goes to work thinking they are going to do when they are in law enforcement but everyone goes to work knowing that it's a potential that may happen," said police spokesperson Const. Rob Carver.
Members of the Independent Investigation Unit (IIU), which is responsible for investigating serious incidents involving police in Manitoba, were called to the scene and are now investigating.
Multiple police cars were parked around the front and back of the home on Tuesday morning. Police tape blocked the front of the building and its back entrance, while uniformed officers walked around the block.
While he couldn't speak about Tuesday's shooting because the investigation is in the hands of the IIU, Carver said police are trained to use lethal force "anytime they feel that their lives or the lives of anyone else are at risk, or that themselves or anyone around them is at risk of grievous bodily harm."
"We are presented with a threat and the only reasonable option in response to that threat is lethal force — in this case a side arm, and that's the training," he said.
5th police shooting in Winnipeg this year
It is the fifth police shooting in Winnipeg this year. Two of them have been fatal. There were two other police shootings in Manitoba this year: one in Portage la Prairie and the other on Sagkeeng First Nation.
There were no police shootings in Winnipeg in 2016 and two in 2015.
Zane Tessler, the civilian director of the IIU, said he has spoken with other investigative units across the country and Manitoba's number of police shootings this year is very high.
He said it is a lot compared to other jurisdictions considering the population of the province and number of police officers.
The police watchdog has been able to keep up with the number of investigations so far, said Tessler, but that could change if more complex cases land on their desks.
"There's still three months left in the fiscal year ... so we are doing the best we can under the circumstances," he said.
Carver said police shootings "are just the reflection of random crime."
"When we get asked about stabbings or other incidents in the city they fluctuate based on a whole bunch of factors ... I would guess that the same factors are involved in our officers having to deploy their weapons," he said.
No officers were injured during the shooting. Carver said officers involved in it will receive support and counselling.
'This is sad': Neighbour
Lisa Chartrand could see flashing lights from police and ambulance vehicles through her window, drawing her attention to the scene.
"We saw him getting carried out on a stretcher," Chartrand said. "This is sad."
The mother of two said she felt scared to send her children to school in the morning.
"Do I know they're not going to get harmed? Not by police, by just anyone, it's a scary world out there. I can't keep them in a bubble, I can't walk them to and from school every day," she said.
"There's children here … there's an elementary school here."
