Calgary Police charged with two counts of 2nd degree murder

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

Pretty big stretch here . From even the video above you can see multiple cars involved in the slow chase. If you are a witness in real time to the shooting from any of those vehicles your interpretation of what happened could differ from body footage from within the accused's car without “lieing” to cover up an (alleged ) murder - and let’s not pretend this was an officer shooting someone completely innocent / unarmed fleeing suspect in the back , etc .

They were driving an extremely dangerous , almost unstoppable, stolen vehicle through downtown Calgary (albeit almost comically slow ) for an hour .

I do wonder if audio from the body cam may be a large factor in the charges - for a murder charge to occur ….. did the officer say something in advance of the shooting ….

This seems an exaggeration. Have you ever driven a vehicle like that? They are usually extremely slow to accelerate, and have awful handling. You constantly have to go through gears to get it up to any amount of speed. I suspect a cruiser stopped in front while it was doing 10km/h would have quickly ended it's forward momentum, or a spike belt completely disabled it.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Geraldsh

Yes, they were armed with a one ton cube van, would have been extremely dangerous if they ever found second gear.

They were going upwards of 10km/h, probably in third by then.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

This seems an exaggeration. Have you ever driven a vehicle like that? They are usually extremely slow to accelerate, and have awful handling. You constantly have to go through gears to get it up to any amount of speed. I suspect a cruiser stopped in front while it was doing 10km/h would have quickly ended it's forward momentum, or a spike belt completely disabled it.

At the 10km they were going I agree . I even said comically slow speed chase. But the vehicle itself is extremely dangerous and once it gets going almost unstoppable.

That doesn’t mean other officers lied about a “murder” as the post I was replying to suggested -especially as they were all (all but 1?) on other pursuit vehicles .

I have no clue if the force was justified or not . But jumping to “all the officers lied to cover up a murder “ is a huge stretch in this situation

[activeStick]

Will be an interesting case to follow as details slowly come out, assuming they come out at all to the public. With only the details in the article available, along with that video, my guess at this point is that the evidence is damning enough against the officer that it forced ASIRT to come out and actually press charges. The comments from the ASIRT director to me read as him saying that the witness officers weren't accurate in their statements as he noted that they had a lot of body cam and helicopter footage available after essentially excusing the officers from their stories since "it can be difficult for a proper recollection," from them with the hope that those that provided those statements aren't held accountable for "mistaking" what they saw or basically, lying to protect their own.

While ASIRT is presented as an agency that investigates potential wrong-doing by the police services, I believe they still follow their code and will protect their own unless the evidence is damning enough that they cannot, since that would destroy the trust in their institution that some people still have.

[Jason14h]

This is why I wonder if there is audio that is incrementing for a murder charge

[Fuzz]

I guess I just disagree on the almost unstoppable nature of a cube truck, moving fast or not. Like I said, a spike belt would do it. And if they swerved, they'd tip over. They have a few very exposed tires to shoot out. I just don't see this thing as being some unstable menace. A Ford Excursion or Suburban would be far harder to deal with, given they can actually manoeuvre and accelerate.

[Robbob]

Looking at the story a couple years ago it says that investigators said the situation escalated at which time the officer discharged his firearm. I am guessing ASIRT reviewed things didn't think that the escalation warranted use of force or there was no escalation after reviewing the video.

https://calgary.citynews.ca/2023/05/...rive-shooting/

[metallicat]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I guess I just disagree on the almost unstoppable nature of a cube truck, moving fast or not. Like I said, a spike belt would do it. And if they swerved, they'd tip over. They have a few very exposed tires to shoot out. I just don't see this thing as being some unstable menace. A Ford Excursion or Suburban would be far harder to deal with, given they can actually manoeuvre and accelerate.

Not to give away any industry secrets, but spike belts don’t work automatically. If they work at all. Sometimes they don’t puncture tires and even if they do the air loss can be slow. And shooting tires on a moving vehicle isn’t all that easy. A better option would be using a sniper to actually disable the engine, which can be done. But in a risk averse police service? Not usually an option. And even with a truck moving slow boxing it in with Explorers isn’t necessarily going to work.

[DownInFlames]

We don’t know what the other officers said in their statements so there shouldn’t be speculation about charges for them. Witness accounts are notoriously inaccurate anyway and it would be tough to prove any exaggeration was deliberate.

[jayswin]

Yeah, definitely no reason to speculate ourselves into extremes, I agree. What is known is that the barrier for ASIRT to recommend two charges of second degree murder is certainly high enough that something was said or done that will likely shock the public, if and when it is released.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Yeah, definitely no reason to speculate ourselves into extremes, I agree. What is known is that the barrier for ASIRT to recommend two charges of second degree murder is certainly high enough that something was said or done that will likely shock the public, if and when it is released.

It definitely comes as a surprise that charges were laid. We’ve seen use of force complaints that resulted in charges but never for a shooting. They’ve always been justified because the officers were facing an imminent threat from a suspect. This trial will be interesting.