Conal Pierse (edmontonjournal.com) – The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team is investigating after police shot and killed a man in northern Alberta Saturday morning.
The Lakeshore Regional Police Service was responding to a call at around 10 p.m. Friday of a male causing a disturbance at a residence on the Driftpile First Nation reserve, approximately 70 kilometres west of the town of Slave Lake.
A shot was fired from inside the home as police approached, and the Lakeshore police, a local aboriginal force, requested the service of K-Division RCMP’s emergency response team, said RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Patrick Webb.
At approximately 9:30 a.m. Saturday, a 37-year-old man armed with a firearm exited the home, and an RCMP member fired his weapon, killing the man. No one else was harmed.
The member who fired the shots remains on active duty and has been offered psychological assistance, Webb said.
The emergency response team is a dedicated unit that responds to serious incidents, such as when shots are fired at police. Webb said their role is to defuse the situation as quickly as possible and make it as safe as possible for everyone involved.
This is the second RCMP-involved shooting this week. On Tuesday, a 26-year-old man was shot by Morinville RCMP who were responding to a family dispute at a resident on the Alexander First Nation. The man was taken by STARS air ambulance to the University of Alberta Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and is expected to recover.
Webb said the RCMP works closely with ASIRT after such incidents to make sure all the circumstances come out.
“Every one of these we take individually — we don’t keep score on it,” he said. “It’s simply a matter of trying to resolve every situation as well as possible.”
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