Knife-wielding suspect attacked police officer, shot dead during traffic stop: witnesses

Witnesses of a fatal police shooting in Winnipeg Friday afternoon say they were worried for their safety and their lives.

A man reportedly attacked a police officer and threatened others in what has been described by witnesses as a chaotic scene on a busy city street.

“It’s scary when people are coming at somebody with a knife,” said witness Cheyene Guimond. “I could say that I feared for my life.”

Police have released little information about the shooting that happened around 4:15 p.m. in the area of Mountain Avenue and Salter Street.

But Guimond and fellow witness Andrew McPherson say they were only feet away as the situation unfolded.

“He didn’t say anything when he got shot, he just took a step back and then hit the ground,” said Guimond.

Witnesses Andrew McPherson (left) and Cheyene Guimond. (Credit: CityNews/Morgan Modjeski)

The witnesses say the incident occurred during a traffic stop. The police officer was in his car when a man apparently approached the cruiser, screaming and yelling, banging on the cruiser’s driver window with a knife.

After the officer opened the door, the two are said to have wrestled inside the police cruiser, at which time both McPherson and another man, the driver of a nearby commercial truck, tried to help.

“We came to the guy with the knife and he turned his attention towards us, said, ‘Do you want me to stab you too,’ and then we scattered,” said McPherson. “And then someone else threw a brick at the guy with the knife.”

McPherson says the man with the knife then turned towards the person who threw the brick. At that point the officer was able to get some distance between himself and the armed man, drew his weapon, and told him to drop the knife.

When the man wouldn’t listen, McPherson says the officer fired.

“That’s when he kept giving commands, he wouldn’t listen, and that’s when he lunged forward and he shot him in the chest,” recounted McPherson.

Both McPherson and Guimond say the officer tried to save the man’s life, performing CPR on the man and telling Guimond to call 911. They say they’re heart goes out to everyone involved in the incident, but they feel if the officer had not taken action, people may have been seriously hurt or worse.

In a news release Friday, police say the man was transported to hospital in critical condition and died as a result of his injuries.

Witnesses Andrew Lawrence (left) and his son Adam Keewatin. (Credit: CityNews/Morgan Modjeski)

Andrew Lawrence and his son Adam Keewatin live nearby and checked on the scene shortly after hearing a gunshot Friday afternoon and right away, they feared for the worse.

“I was just in shock, I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Keewatin.

“I’m 99 per cent sure that he was gone before the ambulance even showed up, because the police stopped working on him before the ambulance even showed up,” added Lawrence. “He was just laying on the ground.”

Breanna Morris also lives nearby and saw the aftermath of the shooting, saying the area was a scene of police tape and cruisers.

“This area was blocked. All of the way,” said Morris. “And then there was like a truck, like a dump truck and the entire street was crossed off and there were a lot of police officers around the area.

“There were like almost 20 police cars all around.”

CityNews reached out to the Winnipeg Police Service for an interview about the shooting on Saturday afternoon. Officials with the WPS explained it was not offering any further comment as the matter is now with the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba (IIU) – the province’s police watchdog.

The IIU did not immediately respond to an interview request.