Thompson 'shocked' by fatal police shooting
'You feel for all those involved. You know that a life's been lost,' Mayor Dennis Fenske says
Residents of Thompson, Man., are shocked after a police traffic stop on the weekend ended with one man dead and two women and a police officer injured, the mayor says.
"I think any time you have an event of this magnitude in a small community, there's always shock," said Thompson Mayor Dennis Fenske.
Police pulled over a car after a driver was spotted driving erratically on Saturday morning. An officer got out of the police cruiser and the car started started moving towards him, RCMP said on the weekend. The police officer was hit by the car, and he fired, police said.
Police gunfire also injured a female passenger, the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba said. She was transported to hospital with serious injuries.
"There was a very brief pursuit and the vehicle then came to a stop. The officer left his vehicle, was approaching the stopped vehicle, at which point that vehicle then accelerates, striking the officer. As a result, the officer then discharged his service revolver," said Zane Tessler, executive director of the IIU, which investigates serious incidents involving police.
A second female passenger was also injured, but by the actions of the driver, not as a result of gunfire, said Tessler.
The officer involved suffered minor injuries.
No names have been released and the mayor does not know whether any of the individuals involved live in the area, but there's sympathy for them regardless, he said.
"You feel for all those involved. You know that a life's been lost … so your thoughts and prayers are with everybody," Fenske said.
"From our perspective, from the community's perspective, we're feeling compassion for all those involved, and hopefully at some point we'll understand the whole event."