Widow demands report into fatal shooting by RCMP

(CBC News) – The widow of a Wagmatcook man shot and killed by RCMP hopes a march will stir up answers.

It’s been a year since John Andrew Simon died in the First Nation community, and Patsy MacKay is still waiting to learn the details of an investigation by Halifax Regional Police.

She’s planning a march Thursday from Simon’s gravesite to a local church.

“We don’t know any more today than we did Dec. 3, 2008,” MacKay said.

“We get a different date every month saying when the report is going to be released. There’s a new date now of Dec. 15. The Crown prosecutor has already finished, and that was back in October. I mean, a whole year has gone by. That’s ridiculous.”

RCMP officers went to Simon’s home on Dec. 2, 2008, after receiving a 911 call about a domestic dispute. The RCMP has said little about what happened immediately before its officer fired, only that the shooting happened after 90 minutes of negotiations and that Simon was alone in the house at the time.

The Halifax Regional Police, brought in to investigate, handed over a report to the Nova Scotia Public Prosecution Service.

The prosecution service said it assessed the report and made its recommendations to police in late October. However, a spokesman for Halifax police said the final report is not complete and the investigation is continuing.

The Wagmatcook First Nation has been demanding to see the report. Brian Arbuthnot, its director of operations, said they were told the RCMP are reviewing the report.

“Whether there is a report that’s gone back to the RCMP, if there are charges to be laid, then they should be laid immediately concurrent to the release of the report. And in fact the HRM police should be releasing that report to the community at large right now,” he said.

Both Arbuthnot and MacKay said they were told by police that the results of the investigation would be available on Dec. 15.

But the RCMP said they are still waiting for the results of the investigation from Halifax police, and no date has been set for the release of the information to the family.