Inquest called into 2023 death of University of Manitoba international student killed by Winnipeg police

An inquest has been called into the 2023 fatal shooting of Afolabi Opaso, a 19-year-old University of Manitoba international student killed by Winnipeg police.

It’s one of six inquests called by Manitoba’s chief medical examiner on Wednesday.

Opaso, from Nigeria, was fatally shot three times by Winnipeg police at an apartment building near the university on Dec. 31, 2023, during a “psychotic episode.”

Officers were called by Opaso’s roommates, who told police he was threatening them. Police said the 19-year-old was acting erratically, that he was armed with two knives, and that he ran at police when he was shot.

The Winnipeg police officer who killed Opaso was cleared of all wrongdoing last summer after a police watchdog investigation determined the officer was defending himself. The second officer was reaching for their taser while the first officer fired his gun.

That was the conclusion reached by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT), which was tasked with investigating after Manitoba’s Independent Investigation Unit (IIU) learned an officer involved in the shooting was a close relative of an employee of Manitoba Justice, and they wanted to avoid any perceived conflict of interest.

The inquest called by chief medical examiner Dr. John K. Younes will determine the circumstances related to the man’s death, and if anything can be done to prevent similar deaths from occurring in the future.

READ: Lawyers representing families of slain men during police shootings calling for joint inquest

“Information about the date, time, and location of the inquest will be determined by the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba and released at a later date,” the inquest notice reads.

A witness recorded the incident from his bedroom in the apartment, the ASIRT report reads. “On the short recording, a male says, ‘drop the knife, drop the knife,’ and then three shots are heard immediately after. Those words and the shots take less than three seconds.”

An autopsy determined Opaso was indeed struck by three bullets: one entered his left chest and passed through a lung and the aorta; one entered his left back and entered a lung; and another entered his left hip area.

The report acknowledges one of the bullets struck Opaso in the back, “which in turn could mean that they were fleeing and posed no threat to the officer.

“In this incident, there is an audio recording of the shots that shows that there were three shots in quick succession. There is no evidence that (Opaso) had stopped running at the officers. Based on the available evidence, a court is unlikely to find that (he) was fleeing the (officer) when he was shot in the back.”

Stony Mountain prison death

Among the five other inquests called by Manitoba’s chief medical examiner was an inquest into the death of Ricardo Pereira.

The 23-year-old inmate at Stony Mountain Institution died in the early hours of Sept. 5, 2023, after ingesting methadone.

Pereira’s mother filed a lawsuit against the federal attorney general and Correctional Services of Canada last year, alleging what led to her son’s death was the deterioration of his mental health after being placed in isolation following a deadly riot at the prison.

His death was also directly linked to having a visit from his mother cancelled earlier in the day, the lawsuit claims.

Pereira was serving an eight-year sentence for break-and-enter and aggravated assault.