Alberta’s police watchdog said it is investigating after a 49-year-old man died following an officer-involved shooting in the community of Montgomery Tuesday afternoon.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) is now investigating what led to the shooting.
It happened in the parking lot of a shopping centre in the 5000 block of 16 Avenue N.W.
EMS said a man was rushed to hospital in critical, life-threatening condition.
ASIRT said it has asked has asked the Calgary Police Service (CPS) to “withhold specific details” of the shooting until its investigators can speak to witnesses.
Stephen Gibson had just pulled in to the parking lot moments before the shooting and described what happened.
“Almost immediately, that blue Dodge pickup back there came into the parking lot at a high rate of speed, cut off a civilian vehicle and then the police were on scene immediately and shots were fired immediately,” he said.
“I couldn’t see any discernible pause at all in the action. It just happened very, very quickly.”
Global News has confirmed that the truck involved had been stolen, and had a British Columbia licence plate.
On Tuesday afternoon, police said no officers were injured and that two people were taken into custody but did not say why. At a press conference Tuesday night, police said only one person was taken into custody but did not say why.
Gibson told Global News the back window of the pickup truck was smashed, but could not say whether the damage was as a result of gunfire.
This is the ninth officer-involved shooting in Calgary in 2016; four have been fatal.
There were three officer-involved shootings in Calgary in 2015, and two in 2014.
On Tuesday night, CPS held a press conference to answer questions about the shooting and acknowledged the rising number of officer-involved shootings.
“In what seems to be like a nightly occurrence, the high frequency of crime … such as stolen vehicles, give rise to serious officer and public safety concerns,” Acting Deputy Chief James Hardy said. “The common feature of these events is offenders who seem to have no regard for life or property.
“A lot of this crime is being fuelled through the opiate issue we have right now.”
While not specifically saying how or if drugs played a role in Tuesday’s shooting, Hardy told reporters “this year alone, the service has responded to over 4,000 stolen vehicle occurrences, which represent a 44 per cent increase over a five-year average.”
“The risk to our officers is high, (the risk to) individuals using opiates is high,” he said. “What it does, is it changes your entire personality. It drives you, it drives you to commit crime.”
ASIRT is asking anyone who may have witnessed the incident to call them at 403.592.4306.
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