RCMP responds to ASIRT investigations

EDMONTON – During the span of three days last week, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) was contacted three times to investigate three separate incidents.

The first incident happened Thursday in Grand Cache, when RCMP tried to stop a man suspected of driving impaired. According to RCMP, there was a confrontation, resulting with the suspected impaired driver being shot.

In the second incident, a 27-year-old man was tasered in Leduc during an arrest Friday night. He passed away in hospital on Sunday.

On Saturday night, two men were shot by a Wetaskiwin RCMP officer near Ma Me O Beach after the officer pulled over a vehicle suspected of impaired driving and an altercation ensued. One of the men died, and the other is still in hospital.

The Deputy Commissioner of the RCMP reacted on Tuesday to the investigations.

“We have full faith in ASIRT and the investigation that they’ll conduct, that the facts will come out and we’ll be lead by those facts as to what direction we take from there,” says Dale McGowan.

During the fatal shooting at Ma Meo Beach, the lone officer pulled over the vehicle which reportedly was carrying five men. The question is being asked whether the officer should have had backup before pulling over the vehicle. The Deputy Commissioner says it’s standard practice for RCMP officers to work alone during traffic patrol.

“This, as you may have heard, while not touching on the circumstances themselves, started out as an impaired driving investigation which is usually the way some of these things start, and that, on to itself, doesn’t necessarily warrant two people,” explains McGowan

But McGowan adds if glaring issues from any of the three incidents come to light before ASIRT concludes its investigation, protocol and procedures may be changed.

The Deputy Commissioner says he believes support and trust of the RCMP in Alberta is strong despite the three incidents.

“I think the support and the public trust still is very high especially here in Alberta, and as we see the support in communities like this (Fort Saskatchewan) is pretty much the standard.”

The senior director of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP says, once ASIRT has completed its investigations into the cases, the Commission may also look at them.

“The role of the Commission is to examine the conduct of the RCMP members against the standards of policing practices and RCMP policy,” explains Richard Evans. “The role of ASIRT is to examine the conduct of RCMP members as part of a criminal investigation.”

“We can investigate it ourselves, we can look at the conduct, and make findings and recommendations,” adds Evans. “The main focus of our recommendations is remedial in nature, so it’s about making recommendations to the RCMP to try to prevent problems like this from reoccurring – are there better ways of policing?”