A Delta police officer facing a second-degree murder charge after shooting a “distraught and violent man” during a standoff in November 2012 learned today the charge will be stayed.
The Criminal Justice Branch (CJB) said after a careful review of the case, they determined the “evidence no longer satisfies its charge approval standard for the continued prosecution” of Cst. Jordan MacWilliams.
Mehrdad Bayrami, 48, was fatally shot outside the Starlight Casino in New Westminster in November 2012, after police allegedly rescued a female hostage after a five-hour standoff ensued. The hostage, Tetiana Piltsina, was Bayrami’s ex-girlfriend.
B.C.’s police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, led a probe into the shooting. Last fall, the Crown approved a second-degree murder charge against MacWilliams — a rarity for a B.C. officer.
After today’s announcement, Delta Police Chief Cst. Neil Dubord said they felt an “overwhelming sense of relief for Jordan MacWilliams, his family, the men and women of the Delta Police Department, and indeed all police officers across Canada.”
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Dubord went on to say that the charges initially laid had the potential to “deeply impact police across Canada, both operationally and psychologically.”
On April 7, 2015, Piltsina told Global News that Bayrami told her, while she was being held at gunpoint, that he would never go back to prison. She says he also told her he would leave the parking lot of the Starlight Casino in a plastic bag.
“He was doing his job. Any of them, facing a man with a gun, I consider them a hero because not everyone can do this job.”
~ with files from Canadian Press
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