An Edmonton police officer who fatally shot a suspected drunk driver last year was acting reasonably and used the force necessary, an investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team has concluded.
The officer’s use of lethal force was permissible and did not constitute a criminal offence, ASIRT executive director Susan Hughson said at a news conference Wednesday.
CBC identified the driver as 55-year-old Vitaly Savin, who had moved from Russia several years earlier to Edmonton, where he worked in the construction industry.
The incident on March 9, 2017, began when police received several calls around 1:30 p.m. about a suspected impaired driver in west Edmonton, Hughson said.
The suspect was driving a minivan on 149th Street before turning onto Whitemud Drive. The minivan was reported hitting curbs and snowbanks, speeding, splitting lanes, swerving, and forcing other drivers to swerve to avoid a collision.
One caller followed the minivan as it left the Whitemud to turn south on 119th Street, tailing it into Holland Landing near 23rd Avenue and Rabbit Hill Road in southwest Edmonton.
When a police car arrived and blocked the minivan with his car, the caller left the scene.
Ignoring the officer’s command to stay in the minivan, the man got out. The officer noted the smell of liquor and the man’s glazed eyes, his difficulty focusing, and that he was swaying from side to side, Hughson said.
The man denied he had been drinking.
When the officer tried to arrest the man, the suspect produced a hunting knife from a sheath on his belt, which he raised and pointed at the officer.
The officer called for assistance. He backed away, but slipped on the fresh snow and fell backwards.
The suspect, moving forward, fell on top of the officer, who kicked him away. When the man advanced a second time, the officer fired his handgun four times.
“The situation between the officer and the man had deteriorated extremely quickly,” Hughson said.
“The time between when the officer indicated that he was ‘off’ with the subject, meaning he was going to go deal with him, and the time that he reported shots had been fired was one minute, 14 seconds.”
No witnesses saw the events prior to the shooting, she said.
An autopsy found the suspect’s blood-alcohol content was three-and-a-half times the legal driving limit.
“Based on the available evidence as a whole, it is very clear that the conduct of the man presented a very real risk of death to the officer,” Hughson said.
“When assessing the danger posed to the officer by the man, and factors such as the presence of a weapon, the immediacy of the threat to the officer, and the lack of time, distance or the availability of other alternatives, it is evident that the action taken by the subject officer, while tragic, was reasonable in the circumstances,” she said.
The investigation also found that Savin, who held dual Russian and Canadian citizenship, had no prior criminal record and “by all accounts, [his] conduct … was out of character.”
Savin operated his own business and worked as a sub-contractor ,and was not working that day because of inclement weather.
ASIRT investigates incidents involving Alberta’s police that result in serious injury or death, or serious allegations of police misconduct.