Police shooting of suspect in double homicide at Alberta work camp in AER’s Frac Frenzy Blanket Approval Pilot at Fox Creek was ‘necessary,’ police watchdog finds

Police shooting of suspect in double homicide at Alberta work camp near Fox Creek was ‘necessary,’ police watchdog finds by Clare Clancy, August 8, 2016, Edmonton Journal in Calgary Herald

An investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team has determined that the shooting of a 29-year-old man by RCMP officers was necessary because the man presented a high risk following a double homicide.

RCMP officers had responded to reports of a man armed with a large butcher knife in a work camp, about a one-hour drive south of Fox Creek, which is located about 260 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

The multiple 911 calls on June 30, 2015, included reports that the man had killed two people and had attempted to set the Berland Open Lodge camp on fire.

In the confrontations with police, the man was shot multiple times, with officers firing 13 rounds combined.

“This was undoubtedly a harrowing and horrific incident but, practically speaking, the officers’ attendance and engagement of the man ended the incident before any civilian workers still present were injured or killed,” an ASIRT statement said Monday.

Police later identified the dead camp workers as 37-year old David Derksen from LaCrete and 50-year-old Hally Dubois from Red Deer.

The investigation found that two Fox Creek RCMP officers had arrived on scene together, with their service weapons drawn, at about 1:15 a.m. while a third officer was on the way.

Officers shouted instructions at the man, who was carrying a knife, but he continued to move around the work camp. When police told the man to drop the knife and stop, the man lunged at the officers, who fired at him.

“At the time police were dealing with the man, it was believed he had already killed two people. In those circumstances, at both points when the man lunged at officers with the knife, there were subjective and objective grounds to believe that the man presented a very high risk,” ASIRT said.

When the third RCMP officer arrived, armed with a rifle, he provided cover for his colleagues while they attempted to take away the man’s knife and check on his condition.

The two officers, one armed with a baton and one with a gun, repeatedly told the man to drop the knife and that he was under arrest, the investigation found. He got to his feet and lunged again. The officers with their guns drawn shot the man again, and an officer holding a baton was able to drag the man away from the knife.

The man was transported to hospital for surgery with serious injuries.

ASIRT found there were no reasonable grounds to believe officers committed an offence.

Daniel Goodridge is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of interfering with a dead body and two counts of assault with a weapon. His trial is set for May 15, 2017, in Grande Prairie.

ASIRT
investigates incidents involving Alberta police that result in serious injury or death.

[Refer also to:

2016 08 01: Why isn’t AER’s Fox Creek Frac Frenzy Regulatory Failure front page news? AER releases evaluation of its Play-Based (Blanket Approval) DeRegulation Pilot

2016 04 16: AER allows Repsol to resume fracking after causing world record 4.8M frac quake (felt 280 km away near Edmonton) in AER’s Fox Creek Blanket Approval Frac Frenzy Free-for-All Experiment. But, Repsol appears too shaken to resume

2016 01 16: Ernst vs AER Supreme Court of Canada hearing followed by world-record 4.8M frac quake in AER’s Immoral Blanket Approval Frac Experiment Gone Wild, felt in St. Albert, 280km away

2015 07 17: AER Frac Pilot Project: Earthquakes, tax increases, water restrictions, double homicide, spills and accidents shake Alberta town’s faith in fracking; Aging sour facilities in deregulated Fox Creek a big worry for council; AER’s FracQuake Red Light stops Chevron only 16 days; Families moving out ]

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