Quebec’s Crown prosecutor clears police in two Nunavik deaths

Quebec’s Crown prosecutor has cleared KRPF officers of any wrongdoing in two separate civilian deaths last year in Inukjuak. (FILE PHOTO)

Kativik Regional Police Force officers have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the 2015 shooting death of a Nunavik man.

After a year-long investigation, Quebec’s Crown prosecutor said June 6 that police used appropriate force to protect themselves against a man who threatened two officers in Inukjuak in April 2015.

According to the investigation report prepared by Quebec’s provincial police, the man, who hasn’t been named, showed up at the KRPF police station in Inukjuak April 24 at 12:50 a.m. brandishing an axe.

The report said the man approached two KRPF officers at the detachment, threatened them with the axe and then pulled a knife from his pocket.

At that point, the officers asked the man to drop his weapon, the report noted; when he didn’t comply, one of the officers fired a gun twice at the man.

The man fell to the ground, but then rose again, continuing to move towards the officers with his axe.

The officer fired at the man again, this time fatally wounding him, the report said.

The investigation, carried out by the Sûreté du Québec, relied on camera footage from inside the police station, along with interviews with relatives of the victim.

In those interviews, some of the man’s family members told police that he indicated to them that he wanted to be shot by police.

The two Quebec prosecutors who reviewed the SQ’s report determined that the officers’ use of lethal force was justified.

In a separate decision released April 22, Quebec’s Crown has also cleared KRPF and SQ officers involved in another standoff that took place in Inukjuak in March 2015.

On March 23 last year, KRPF officers responded to reports of an assault and hostage taking in a home in the Hudson Bay community, involving a 24-year-old man, his partner, his twin babies and his 60-year-old mother.

A report prepared by the Montreal police service detailed what turned into a three-day standoff. By day two, the KRPF called the SQ in for reinforcement; later in the day, the report said, the man released his hostages.

As officers planned to intervene on the individual early March 25, police heard a gunshot from within the residence.

Officers then discovered the man’s body inside the home; the investigation later determined his death was by suicide.

In an April 22 statement, the office of Quebec’s Crown said neither police force was found to have committed any criminal offence in its handling of the standoff.

Those two incidents in Inukjuak, among others, created tensions within the community, with local leaders calling for better communication with police.

In December 2015, Quebec’s office of criminal and penal prosecutions changed its policy; the office can now publish decisions in which the Crown has decided not to lay charges following an investigation into civilian death or injury during a police intervention.