Misperceptions of police's use of deadly force

Taking aim at misperceptions; police use of deadly force not like in TV, movies

It's not like television.

Suspects don't fall with one bullet. Police aren't all perfect shots.

And Tasers don't always stop suspects in their tracks, says a patrol sergeant who trains city officers how to handle explosive situations.

Last weekend, police shot and killed a 28-year-old man witnesses said was carrying a machete near Sargent Avenue and Arlington Street. It was the first police-involved shooting of 2010 in Winnipeg.

Witnesses said two officers fired at Eric Russel Daniels three times, with two bullets hitting a pizza shop in the city's West End. A witness said officers instructed him twice to put the machete down.

Daniels' girlfriend said he was walking towards officers and was about 1.5 metres from them when they shot him. Patrol Sgt. Jason Anderson, with the Winnipeg Police Service Training Academy, said when police encounter stressful situations where people are at risk of serious injury or death, they rely on their training.

"Police officers, like everybody else, are human beings, and under high stress and acute stress, certain things will break down," he said. If an officer has determined that he or she must shoot someone, they're trained to shoot "centre mass," otherwise known as a person's torso.

Anderson said it can be "insanely difficult" for officers to hit an extremity if a suspect is moving quickly.

"In these dynamic, very stressful, acute, high-stress situations when targets are moving and things are happening very fast, shooting at the arms and the legs doesn't necessarily stop the threat from advancing on the officer," he said. He said shooting a person's arm or leg once or twice doesn't guarantee a person will stop before they hurt or kill others, especially if they're driven and in close distance.

He said police aren't trained to shoot a particular number of times, but to stop a suspect from posing a threat.

"There are very few things that will stop a person immediately," Anderson said. "I guess people have this conception that if you're hit with a bullet -- boom, you're done or you fly backwards out the window... but that's not reality."

He said fine motor skills of officers can also deteriorate in stressful situations. They can also experience lack of hearing, problems with distance perception, and tunnel vision. Anderson said stun guns are classified as intermediate weapons, like batons or pepper spray. The stun gun delivers an electric shock after it shoots out two probes that attach to a person's skin or clothing.

He said the weapons are not effective when officers must use deadly force.

In situations in which someone has a weapon like a knife, he said the stun gun's probes may not hit the person, and the person can continue an attack.

"It is absolutely, 100 per cent, positively the wrong choice in a true deadly-force encounter unless a lot of other things are in place to keep the people around there safe," he said. He also said: "You cannot rely on the Taser to be a weapon of precision."

Officers must do one day of mandatory gun and stun gun training each year.

The federal Criminal Code says peace officers can use force "intended or... likely to cause death or grievous bodily harm" if they believe someone could be seriously hurt or killed, including themselves.

Anderson said police must make quick decisions about how they'll handle suspects they perceive as a threat, sometimes in five- to seven-second windows.

"It's an unbelievable emotional thing... it's not TV," he said.

"Shooting somebody and taking somebody's life, it's not an easy thing for anybody."

Under the province's Fatality Inquiries Act, there is an automatic inquest that examines circumstances around a death involving on-duty police officers.

It doesn't take much to be able to possess a machete

It's a snap to pack a machete

You can purchase knives and machetes all legally at the Ellice Buy and Sell and any number of other stores around town.

In fact, it will cost you as little as $11 to arm yourself with an 18-inch machete, such as one the Free Press bought Monday at a Jarvis Avenue store

It was a machete Eric Russel Daniels was wielding when police shot the 28-year-old man Saturday night.

The Winnipeg Police Service says he refused to drop the weapon.

Daniels' family say they don't know where Daniels got the machete, but the Ellice Buy and Sell owner said the knives are widely available at city stores and flea markets.

The owner said he won't sell the knives or machetes to people less than 18 years old, or to people who appear stoned or intoxicated.

He said he asks for photo identification from people who appear they could be under the age of 18.

Same for Larry Weinstein, owner of United Unlimited, where the Free Press bought the large, steel-blade machete.

Weinstein says he has customers who live in northern communities and buy the machetes to chop bush, or collectors who like to display the items.

He said he won't sell machetes to people under 18 unless their parents are present. Also out are drunk people or those who appear "deranged."

Giselle Mackinnon said Daniels, who was her boyfriend, had his machete, which was about as long as a shoebox, because he was a former Native Syndicate gang member who feared retribution.

After getting into an argument with a couple outside their Home Street bungalow Saturday -- a fight that apparently started when Daniels threatened them -- he ran south with Mackinnon towards Arlington Street near Sargent Avenue. The couple chased them there and started yelling at them, Mackinnon said.

She said her drunk boyfriend, who had problems with alcohol and had a lengthy criminal record with the majority of the offences involving weapons, responded by hitting his hand on a light standard in frustration.

Police who arrived told Daniels twice to drop the weapon, Mackinnon said. She said police fired three shots at him after he started walking towards officers with the machete. She estimated Daniels was about 1.5 metres from police when they fired.

"Like any other edged weapons that are out there, if somebody wants to procure one, they're going to find a way to get them," said Const. Jackie Chaput.

"That's the fine edge of the law

WE have large knives in our homes to cut food. Some people use machetes to clear brush. But when, legally, do knives and machetes become weapons?

According to the Criminal Code of Canada, a knife isn't a weapon (unless it's a switchblade, which is considered a "prohibited weapon"). The definition changes when the knife is intended for violent use.

Likewise, a machete designed as an agricultural tool can legally become a weapon when it's intended to hurt or kill other people.

The Criminal Code says it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon (violators can get up to five years in prison if convicted of the charge), but questions can arise when the knife is concealed.

"Is it a weapon under the definition of the code, or is it just someone carrying a knife?" asked David Deutscher, a professor in the faculty of law at the University of Manitoba. The facts in each case determine the answer.

Again, where things get fuzzy is in the intent. Once the police or Crown attorney determine a violent intent and public safety comes into doubt, the knife is then considered a weapon.

Hacking coconuts with a machete in your kitchen is fine. But slinging your blade around at Portage and Main, putting people in peril? That won't cut it."

Winnipeg Police shoot and kill suspect with machete

Police shoot and kill suspect
Cops kill machete wielding man
Wielding a weapon costs a life
Police shoot and kill suspect
Don't blame cops: brother of man shot
Slain man had machete for protection: brother
Slain man's brother displays leadership

- A Winnipeg Police officer shot and killed a 28-year-old man, who was reportedly wielding a machete and moving towards police and was shot when he refused to drop the weapon in his hand, in the West End Saturday night.

- "We are confirming it was an officer-related shooting," Const. Jacqueline Chaput said this morning. She said the man was taken to hospital in critical condition where he succumbed to his injuries.

- "There was one gunfire, a pause and then boom, boom, boom," said Tammy, who heard the shooting at about 10 p.m.

- Tammy said when she and her fiancé looked out their second-storey window, they saw a body lying in the middle of Sargent Avenue near Arlington Street, right beside the hood of a police car. The police car was parked diagonally in the middle of the street, she added.

The body and police car were directly in front of the Flying Pizza restaurant. Across the street is The Club nightclub.

- The man apparently became violent and charged at officers.

- After the gunshots, a woman was overheard yelling in the alley. "She said, ‘I just got word my boyfriend’s been shot.’ She kept saying, ‘What’s the status? What’s the status?’ " Tammy said.

- Police took the woman away in handcuffs.

- The couple saw one ambulance and saw the body loaded into the ambulance. The body was covered but they couldn’t see if the face was covered. They believed the individual was dead.

Another woman in a nearby tenement, Chrry Meanus, believed she heard three gunshots. "Then I heard a scream. (A woman) was screaming at the top of her lungs."

- The incident began when the suspect allegedly threatened a 39-year-old man with the machete during a argument in front of a home in the 600-block of Home Street about 10 p.m. and then fled.
- Const. Jacqueline Chaput, a spokeswoman for Winnipeg police, said the two men didn't know one another. She didn't know what prompted the confrontation.
- The second male — who lives at the location — called police, who encountered the armed man just west of the intersection of Sargent Avenue and Arlington Street.
- The suspect, holding a machete, approached the two male officers who initially responded to the scene and repeatedly refused their orders to drop the weapon, a police spokeswoman said.
- At least one of the officers then fired several gunshots at the man.
- The suspect, a 28-year-old Winnipeg man, was taken to hospital in critical condition and later died of his injuries.
- “It does appear he was brandishing the machete and he was advancing towards the officers resulting in the discharge of the firearm,” said Chaput. “Everything occurred within minutes, literally.”
- Chaput did not know Sunday whether either officers used a Taser before shooting the suspect, and said police were still investigating yesterday whether drugs or alcohol played a role in the incident.
- “Clearly this was an edged weapon that did present an immediate danger to officers and other people in the area, and they used the force they deemed necessary based on their training to deal with the matter and to protect themselves as well as the public,” Chaput said.
- No one else was injured in the incident.
- The area remained cordoned off until Sunday afternoon as police investigated the scene and interviewed witnesses.
- The two officers who initially responded to the incident have been placed on administrative leave — as is routine in a police-involved shooting — pending the investigation by the Homicide Unit.
- No information was released regarding the officers' ranks or how long they have been on the force.

- Police wounded Eric Russel Daniels, of Long Plain First Nation, Saturday evening near the intersection of Arlington Street and Sargent Avenue. He was rushed to hospital in critical condition and later died.
- "They're going to take the appropriate steps they need to, to protect themselves and protect the public," said Const. Jackie Chaput, Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman.
- Daniels, the father of a nine-year-old son, had been drinking at the Maryland Hotel with his girlfriend and they were on their way to her Arlington Street home, said Daniels' brother Nicholas Courchene, 24.
- Daniels got into a verbal dispute with another man on the 600 block of Home Street and police were called.
- "When (police) encountered the suspect, they were immediately confronted by him and he refused to comply with their requests to disarm," said Chaput.
- Witnesses say police fired three shots. Daniels was reportedly hit in the upper torso.
- His hysterical girlfriend, Giselle Mackinnon, ran away from the scene, calling Daniels' brother, Courchene, on her cellphone. She told Courchene his brother was protecting her when the fight happened.
- "I tried to get her to calm down and I told her to take a few breaths, and I told her to talk to me, and all she could get out to me was: 'They shot him. They didn't have to do that. He was only protecting us,' " said Courchene.
- Mackinnon lashed out at police on Facebook Sunday night.
- "The cops didn't (have to) shoot Eric three times last nite! Now he's gone forever. I will do whatever it takes (to) make the police force understand this is our Native land not theirs," read Mackinnon's Facebook profile on Sunday.
- "Stop killing our people. I witnessed this, now I will let the truth be out there and let Winnipeg know that he was gone down on the first shot."
- Mackinnon said Daniels -- an ex-Native Syndicate member who had recently exited the gang -- carried the machete in his duffel bag for protection.
- The machete was about the size of a shoebox, she said.
- As Daniels walked towards police, Mackinnon said officers fired three times and hit Daniels. She was standing across the street, watching as the scene played out.
- "He started walking towards them with (the machete)," she said, adding Daniels lived constantly in fear of being attacked since he left the gang.
- Daniels struggled with alcohol problems, according to court records and family members.
- A 2009 media report said he was on a two-year supervised probation order after he pleaded guilty to theft under $5,000 for stealing a container of chocolates from a Portage la Prairie store. He told court he was intoxicated at the time of the theft.
- "I'm trying my hardest," he said in the report. "It's a struggle to stay sober, but my goal is to keep myself sober."
- Daniels recorded Peyote Healing Songs for the Native American Church, according to a profile on Sunshine Records' website.
- Courchene said his brother sought treatment at different points of his life.
- "He was on the path of correcting his life. We were all involved," said Courchene, who broke down describing how his brother won't see his graduation.
- Police didn't comment on events leading to the shooting, but said the two men in the argument did not know each other.
- Officers are trained to shoot someone if they are carrying weapons that pose an immediate risk to police safety. The two officers are on administrative leave, a standard move after a police-involved shooting.
- Courchene plans to have a memorial for his brother in Long Plain. Family and friends also planned to have a candlelight vigil about 10 p.m. Sunday at the intersection of Arlington and Sargent, at the time and place where Daniels was shot.
- At the intersection on Sunday afternoon, a lone employee of Flying Pizza was spotted cleaning up the mess caused by the shooting. Its glass door had been largely shattered by two bullets, which left holes in a Coca-Cola cooler just inside the shop.
- Long Plain First Nation Chief David Meeches was in the city with the family. He said he wants more details about the shooting and the police use-of-force policy.
- "We'll be monitoring the situation very closely," he said.

- A brother of 28-year-old Eric Daniels, who was shot by Winnipeg police Saturday night in the West End while brandishing a machete, said he does not blame police for their actions.
- “I don’t blame him for doing what he did,” Dallas Courchene, 23, said of the police officer who shot Eric Daniels. “My brother was responsible for his actions and he decided to do what he did even though he was drunk or intoxicated.”
- Courchene planned to hold a candlelight vigil Sunday night for his sibling at the spot where he last faced the police.
- “I’ve had enough of aboriginals blaming police and saying it’s racism. I’m aboriginal myself and I’m sick and tired of it,” he said. “They’re forced to make these kinds of decisions. This is going to be weighing on (the police officer’s) conscience for the rest of his life. I want to let him know that I forgive him.”
- Courchene said he hopes to use his brother’s death to focus on trying to make a difference by promoting positive lifestyle choices.
- “This has got to end — the fighting between cops and aboriginals, and the drinking,” Courchene said.
- Courchene said his brother had connected with Alcoholics Anonymous but was still drinking, and said Eric had asked him to accompany him to AA.
- “He didn’t know how to help himself but he didn’t want to live that life,” Courchene said. “I never got the chance to help him.”
- Courchene remembers his big brother as a happy but troubled guy.
- “He always seemed to have friends and he was always smiling,” Courchene said. “I see him as someone who was struggling a lot and wanted change, and had a lot of pain.”
- Courchene said he spent a lot of time with his brother over the past few months.
- “I don’t care if people look at him as bad,” Courchene said. “He was still my brother and I loved him, and if I had to carry him home drunk, I didn’t care. He was someone to me and that’s all that matters.”

- “There was no need for the police to shoot him three times, he was going to put his weapon down,” Giselle Henderson said of her boyfriend of three months.
- Daniels, originally from Long Plain First Nation, was taken to hospital in critical condition and later died of his injuries.
- Chaput did not know Sunday whether either officer used a Taser before shooting the suspect, and said police were still investigating yesterday whether drugs or alcohol played a role in the incident.
- “They used the force they deemed necessary, based on their training, to deal with the matter and to protect themselves as well as the public,” she said.
- At least three bullets fired by police flew through a glass door and hit a cooler inside the Flying Pizza restaurant at Sargent and Arlington. Two staff members were working at the time but no one at the business was injured.
- Police said Daniels was known to police prior to Saturday’s incident. Friends said he formerly belonged to a gang and carried the machete due to recent run-ins with ex-colleagues.

- A machete-wielding man who was fatally shot by Winnipeg police officers on the weekend acquired the weapon when someone left it at his West End home, his brother says.
- Eric Daniels, 28, was carrying the machete for protection because he recently quit a violent street gang, feared retribution and was attacked four days before he died, said Dallas Courchene, his younger brother.
- The attack was the final straw. Courchene said someone went after Daniels with a beer bottle, smashing it over his head.
- An upset Daniels called Courchene the next day, crying and asking why people wanted to hurt him, the younger brother said.
- Daniels’ decision to arm himself with a machete turned out to be a fatal one. He refused orders to drop the weapon during a tragic encounter with two Winnipeg police officers at Sargent Avenue and Arlington Street on Saturday night, police said.
- Both are male constables.
- Fearing lives were in jeopardy, at least one officer fired multiple shots in self-defence as Daniels approached the pair, police said.
- Daniels was struck by at least one shot. At least two errant shots pierced a window of the Flying Pizza restaurant at the West End intersection.
- An autopsy is scheduled to confirm, among other things, how many bullets struck Daniels.
- As in all officer-involved shootings, an inquest will be held.
- Police were looking for Daniels after he allegedly threatened a stranger with a machete on Home Street moments earlier.
- Daniels had been drinking that evening. Alcoholism was at the root of his offending, Courchene said.
- According to court records, Daniels had 46 adult convictions since 2002, including weapons offences.
- The officers involved in the shooting are on paid administrative leave but are eligible to return to work this week.
- The mandatory leave requires them to miss three immediate shifts following the incident, said spokeswoman Const. Jacqueline Chaput.
- The Winnipeg police homicide unit is investigating, which is standard in such matters. -Detectives will give the file to Manitoba Justice, who will forward it to an independent Crown attorney outside Manitoba for review and opinion whether the officers’ use of force was justified.
- A Manitoba Justice spokeswoman said the independent agency hasn’t been selected.
Morris Swan-Shannacappo, grand chief of the Southern Chiefs’ Organization, would prefer an independent investigation, saying he doesn’t want the police service to investigate its own officers.

Tom Brodbeck's Comment: 
I’ve never met Dallas Courchene, but I’d sure like to.
If I did, I would tell him that his clarity of thought, his compassion and his honesty this week during a very dark period of his life is nothing short of extraordinary.
Courchene’s older brother Eric Daniels was fatally shot by police over the weekend after officers say Daniels threatened them with a machete and refused to drop it.
Daniels was aboriginal. And the temptation by some in this city when an aboriginal person is shot after threatening the lives of police officers is to accuse cops of racism, even in the absence of evidence to support the claim.
Not so for Courchene, who is also aboriginal.
In fact, he says he’s grown tired of those baseless, malicious accusations and says it’s time for people to start taking responsibility for their actions.
“My brother was responsible for his actions and he decided to do what he did even though he was drunk or intoxicated,” said Courchene. “I’ve had enough of aboriginals blaming police and saying it’s racism. I’m aboriginal myself and I’m sick and tired of it.”
Courchene’s comments are a blast of sincerity in what is often a very dishonest debate — driven in large part by some aboriginal interest groups — about how Winnipeg police allegedly shoot young native men simply because of the colour of their skin.
It might be tempting for Courchene to lay the blame for his brother’s death at the feet of others. But in a remarkable show of courage and compassion for the police officers involved in this tragic death, Courchene reveals the truth about his brother’s addiction problem and the events leading up to this senseless death.
“He didn’t know how to help himself but he didn’t want to live that life,” Courchene said. “I never got the chance to help him.”
Courchene obviously feels badly that he wasn’t able to get through to his brother, who he loved and wanted to help.
But even as he grieves his brother’s death and struggles with the pain and anguish of his loss, Courchene is able to appreciate how the shooting affects the police officers involved, too.
No cop wants to use lethal force in the course of duty. But when the lives and safety of officers or the public are in jeopardy, they sometimes have no choice but to discharge their firearm. And they have to live with that for the rest of their lives.
For Courchene, 23, to recognize that and express publicly his empathy toward those officers, given the circumstances, is profound and inspiring.
He is obviously wise beyond his years.
Courchene says he would like to use his brother’s death as a vehicle to promote more positive lifestyles and to focus on the real problems behind these shootings.
This is the kind of leadership we need in this city from aboriginal people who can stand up and say “enough” and recognize that people who find themselves in Daniels’ situation need help, therapy and counselling.
This has nothing to do with race. It has to do with broken families, dysfunctional communities and addictions. That’s where the attention is needed. And we need more people like Courchene to stop playing the race card and the blame game and start taking responsibility for their own lives.
Courchene should be commended for his honest and compassionate response to a very tragic event in his life.
It truly is inspiring.



My Opinion??
I think it's clear that this man was attempting to protecting himself (as he constantly feared for his life after leaving a gang) which is why he didnt drop the weapon. If the police were at a distance from him, he obviously would not be able to throw the machete and hit them. They should have shot him in the leg to disable him and then arrest him, but I don't think they needed to kill him. I think police policy needs to be changed so that individuals are not killed when presenting a weapon but only injured to disable them so police can remove their weapon. Also, I find that police seem to be more able to readily shoot at someone when they are Aboriginal as opposed to White. This definitely plays a factor. It would also be helpful to know the ranks of these two officers who shot, whether they were experienced or new. Daniels may not have been given enough time to drop his weapon, before police shot. There are many potential issues here.