Fatal Unicity shooting: were Winnipeg police officers right to fire their weapons?
Posted December 9, 2024 3:11 pm.
Last Updated December 9, 2024 8:43 pm.
The criticism of Winnipeg police officers is deafening.
Why didn’t officers use less than lethal methods – instead of firing their pistols – to subdue a man armed with a knife at the Unicity shopping centre two weeks ago?
Why didn’t they shoot at the suspect’s arms or legs to lessen the threat, instead of firing the at least 10 bullets that ultimately killed the man?
Why weren’t different de-escalation techniques used, such as involving someone trained in mental-health issues?
Those are some of the complaints swirling in the aftermath of the Nov. 24 incident – a small part of which was caught on camera – that saw an officer stabbed in the throat before the standoff then ended with police pulling their triggers.
But a former Manitoba RCMP officer with more than two decades on the force is sharing his expertise on the shooting and the criticism.
Jimmy Dao, who began with the RCMP in Virden in 1996, says based on the officers’ distance from the suspect, his positioning, his holding a weapon, the timing of the interaction and the overall threat level, police were likely justified in their decision-making.
“It’s unfortunate that lethal use of force was used,” Dao said. “It was, to me, that’s what I would have done.”
A 24-second video clip of the incident is providing insight into the shooting while also fuelling the criticism.
Two police officers can be seen and heard telling a person to “put it down” and to “drop it.” It’s not clear in the video whether the man who was shot was indeed holding a weapon. The man appears to advance toward the officers and at least one of them – perhaps both – begins shooting. At least 10 shots ring out.
The Winnipeg Police Service is aware of the video and has asked the public to avoid rushing to judgment.
Dao acknowledges there’s “a lot of information that we’re missing” given the length of the video clip.
“Like what happened beforehand, before that video started shooting in that way,” said Dao, who finished his RCMP career in Selkirk as a community and school liaison officer. “You almost wonder, well how long were those two officers there before that camera starts rolling. Were they there 10 minutes, 15 minutes talking to this individual? Or did they just pretty much show up on scene and this person started recording as soon as they saw the officers approaching this individual?”
Examining a suspect’s ability, intent and means
In the early evening of Nov. 24, officers were around the Unicity shopping area in Winnipeg’s far west as part of a retail theft initiative. That led to the interaction between the officers and the suspect, during which the officer was allegedly stabbed in the throat and the suspect was subsequently shot.
Winnipeg police say the suspect was given CPR at the scene before he was taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The injured officer was also transported to hospital and treated for his injury. The Independent Investigation Unit (IIU) is still investigating the incident.
Dao explains RCMP officers are trained on something called the CAPRA intervention model, which prioritizes verbal communication and examines among other things a suspect’s ability, intent and means.
“Ability means that, does this person have the ability to harm me or cause me death or grievous bodily harm,” Dao said.
“Intent can be not cooperating when I’m telling them, giving them a lawful order, they do not, continuously. So now I’m wondering, does this person have the intent to harm myself or my partner or the public?
“And the last one is means. Does this individual have the means to harm me or cause me death or grievous bodily harm to myself or my partner or to the public?”
Dao believes in the case of the Unicity shopping centre shooting – again based on the short video – that the answer to all three questions is yes.
“That’s where it’s difficult at that point now, we have to make that decision is to, once all those elements that I feel that have been established, then that is my duty to stop this person from harming myself, my partner or anyone else,” he said, adding every situation is extremely fluid.
“And in this certain situation, you’ve got like literally 30 seconds to react.”
READ MORE: Unicity police shooting: Winnipeg criminal justice professor weighs in on use of force
The former RCMP officer says police would have established that the suspect was armed and refusing to drop his weapon, and was close enough to the officers to significantly increase the threat level with just a few steps.
And that’s the key element for Dao in watching the video: the suspect makes a move towards the officers.
“In the police world, they understand that a person, an average person has the ability to close the distance of 20 feet in less than two seconds,” he said. “If you’ve viewed the video, you see that starting off the officers are already in contact with this individual, they’re standing within less than 20 feet. So as soon as this individual closed that gap, now they’re even closer in regards to how easily this person can harm them.
“An officer will always have to continuously evaluate and assess the situation because it can change quickly. He can decide, if he just stood there the whole time and didn’t move towards the officer, things may have changed. We may have had a different result, because now the officers have time and distance where they can now call for more backup, surround the area, contain the area, so this way, again, no one else will be hurt.
“Or if this individual decides to now sit down instead of standing up, it’s like, he’s not listening, he’s not cooperating, he’s not dropping the knife, but now he decides to sit down. Again, that changes.”
Alternate ways to subdue a suspect?
So if officers decided discharging their service weapons was absolutely necessary in that scenario, why couldn’t they shoot at the suspect’s arm to disarm him, or at his legs to incapacitate him?
It’s a “misconception” that Dao hears a lot in criticism of police work, he explains.
“Police are trained to shoot at the largest target, which is your torso, from your shoulders down to your waist. Because, again, that is the biggest target. In a high-stress situation, it has been shown that a trained officer has missed a person standing literally five feet away from them. That close.
“So can you imagine now the officer’s trying to shoot someone who is 15 feet or more from them, right? They’re not gonna be aiming for a leg or an arm because again, smaller surface area and also the fact of my arm or my leg are moving – harder to target properly.”
Often following shootings involving police officers, the community calls for different ways for police to de-escalate tense and threatening situations. The fatal Unicity shooting was no different.
In multiple big cities, there are programs that see mental-health experts join police officers on calls involving a person in distress. But Dao says that’s only viable if there’s no weapon involved.
“And that’s the big kicker is because the police can’t put a civilian in harm’s way,” he said.
“It’s different if it’s just someone who’s sitting on a sidewalk and has mental thoughts about hurting themselves. It’s fine, it’s great to have that option and I’m all for it. But the police can never go to a call knowing that there’s a weapon involved and bringing the civilian along because we all know, if something happens to the civilian at these calls, well who’s going to be in trouble? It will be the police force for putting this civilian in harm’s way. And they would never do that.”
Again recalling how all situations are different and fluid, Dao believes the element of time changes everything.
“If it wasn’t just 30 seconds, if all of a sudden this individual decides, ‘you know what, I’m just gonna sit down here with my knife and I’m just not gonna do anything.’ If you have that time, you may now try to formulate other ways of trying to get this person to hopefully cooperate and drop the knife. But foremost, nothing’s gonna be done until this individual drops that knife.
“Usually if you have the time … then the police, they’ll bring in a hostage negotiator who will now at that time try to talk to this person – who’s trained – and try to get this person now to comply with police and drop the knife.
“If you have that time, then you have to deploy a different tactic on how to deal with this individual.”
‘It scars you for life’
Speaking of officer shootings in general, Dao called them a “worst nightmare” for the police personnel involved. He says it creates a “ripple effect” – with repercussions on the officers themselves, but also their friends and family.
“No officer wants to start their shift wanting to take someone’s life, and so when something like that happens, it’s so traumatic,” Dao explained.
He says it can lead to apprehension when retuning to the field and dealing with members of the public.
“When you get involved in a traumatic incident like that, it’s always this question of, ‘do I really want to get involved in that again?’” the former RCMP officer said. “You’re hoping you don’t and you’re praying to God it doesn’t, but there’s always this, in the back of your mind when you sign onto work that day, you’re hoping, ‘please don’t let it happen to me again.’
“And it’s sad because it scars you for life and that’s why a lot of officers that are involved in any sort of high-stress incident end up with PTSD because of it. Because it always plays in the back of your mind when something happens.”
Also playing in the minds of officers, according to Dao, is the possibility of legal charges – as Manitoba’s police watchdog undertakes what is often a lengthy investigation.
“Sometimes this can take months and even years while this officer or officers are waiting to know what’s going to happen. It’s very traumatizing and stressful for the officers to now have to sit and wait not knowing what’s going to happen. Where they’re going to be found guilty or not guilty of taking someone’s life.”
Ultimately, Dao hopes members of the community can “understand that police officers are only human at the end of the day.”
“They make mistakes. But when those mistakes are made, it is being dealt with by their police force or sometimes, by the courts if need be,” he said. “We just have to trust in the system that’s been in place, whether it’s the IIU, whether it’s the court system, to make sure that justice is being served. And that’s all we can do unfortunately at these times, and to ask questions.
“So hopefully that the public can understand how difficult it is trying to decide during that 30 seconds, if I’m willing to take someone’s life or not.”
