Nunavik man, 24, shot in police standoff

An Inukjuak man was shot during a stand-off with police June 14, after he threatened people with rocks and a knife. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

(Updated June 15, 10:20 a.m.)

In a month marked by multiple deaths, accidents and violent altercations in Nunavik, an Inukjuak man was shot June 14 during a standoff with police.

Quebec’s independent investigations bureau—le Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes, or BEI—said the local Kativik Regional Police Force detachment received a call midday that a 24-year-old man was acting aggressively towards family members and throwing rocks at community members.

When police officers arrived on the scene a few minutes later, the man came out of a shed with a knife pointed to his own throat, the BEI said in a release.

When officers asked the man to drop the knife, he picked up a rock and pointed his knife at one of the officers.

That’s when a KRPF officer reportedly shot at the man.

The 24-year-old was medivaced to a Montreal hospital. The BEI said June 15 that the man remains in critical condition.

Eight investigators from the agency as well as a forensic technician from the Sûreté du Québec provincial police force will investigate the incident in Inukjuak.

This marks the second violent confrontation in the Hudson coast community this month.

On June 2, a man held a woman hostage in a local residence overnight, firing gunshots in the home until he surrendered, without incident, the following morning.

A week later in Akulivik, KRPF officers shot and killed a 19-year-old man who stabbed five people, killing three of them.