Father of 2 shouldn't have been killed by Thompson RCMP, family says

The family of a Thompson man shot to death by RCMP says he never should have been killed over a case of drinking and driving. 

Steven Campbell, 39, was shot and killed by an RCMP officer on Nov 21 after a short police chase ended in an officer shooting into the vehicle he was driving.

"Steven had his demons, and Steven was no saint, but I just wanted to tell his story because he made mistakes, and he didn't deserve this," said Shannon Heck, Campbell's sister.

According to RCMP, Campbell had been driving erratically when officers tried to pull him over.

RCMP said the vehicle stopped after a short chase, and when an officer got out and approached the car, Campbell accelerated and hit him.

The officer then fired shots into the car, hitting and killing Campbell and seriously injuring the mother of one of his children. Three other people were also in the car at the time.

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But Heck said the RCMP's story doesn't jive with what people in the car have told her family. They texted her mom the night of the accident and showed up at Campbell's funeral on Friday, telling the family Campbell never accelerated or hit the police officer.

"This is what we've been told: There was drinking that night. My brother was no saint. He was drinking and driving that night, and the police started to follow them," said Heck. "He didn't stop. The RCMP car rammed their vehicle. The officer got out and was yelling for everybody to put their hands up, and he started firing into the vehicle."

The force of the officer ramming their vehicle left one woman with four broken ribs, she said.

"Steven didn't accelerate the car. Steven did not attempt to hit the car. The officer rammed the vehicle and then got out and shot into the car," she said. "They told me my brother's hands were on the wheel of the car. He was not resisting, and his hands were on the wheel when he was shot."

Campbell had two daughters, age two and 11 years old and was about to return to work at the Thompson mine.

He had recently been laid off and was working as a night clerk at a hotel to make ends meet. He was supposed to return to work at the mine on Nov. 30.

"Every penny he had went to those girls. When we went through his stuff, he had very little," she said, adding the family found very few personal possessions except for stacks of baby clothes and toys and sippy cups in his home. "Everything he had went to them."

Heck said the family is still in shock. They were expecting to see her brother at Christmas, when his parents were going to fly him home to Edmonton.

"I had nightmares about my brother being shot and sitting there in a pool of his blood, and then I had nightmares about my brother being on a table at the morgue," she said. "You're just numb, and you just hope that he didn't suffer."

She said the people in the car were asked by RCMP to sign a statement indicating Campbell had run over the officer's leg, but they all refused.

This weekend, the family visited the woman who was injured in the shooting, the mom of Campbell's two-year-old daughter.

She was recovering from surgery to remove a bullet from her head and was in a lot of pain, Campbell said.

"She's got a long road of recovery ahead of her," she said. "We're going to do what we can for [the kids] ... They lost their dad."

Campbell said the family was told to stop contacting RCMP while the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba investigates.

IIU wants witnesses to come forward

Officials with the IIU say a civilian monitor has been appointed to the case and the investigation is ongoing.

They're encouraging anyone with information to come forward if they haven't already.

"We need answers to have closure. With his funeral on Friday, that was the hardest part of this whole thing, but we don't have closure," said Heck. "We're hoping the investigation with the IIU brings to light what really happened … We want to know why this officer did this. Why he would've shot into a vehicle over a DUI. There's no reason that we can see."

Heck said the family are now waiting and don't know when they'll have answers about what happened that night.

Provincial officials couldn't provide a timeline for when the investigation might conclude, but did say investigations involving a death often take longer to investigate.

"We understand this can be difficult for families and others directly affected by the incident and do take steps to update them on developments, while still protecting the integrity of the investigation itself," officials said.