Police shootings on Deerfoot Trail following wild car chase were justified, ASIRT concludes
CBC News | Posted: December 18, 2015 5:09 PM | Last Updated: December 18, 2015
Passenger told investigators she 'wanted to die to be with the driver' who had just been shot dead by police
The woman shot in the face by Calgary police following a wild car chase in February 2014 deliberately tried to provoke the shooting, according to an investigation into the incident that found the actions of officers to be justified.
The woman survived and later told investigators with the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) that she willfully pointed a dark object — a pair of sunglasses — at officers after her companion led police on a nearly hour-long chase that ended with him being shot dead.
The woman wanted "to make police think she had a weapon so they would shoot her as she wanted to die to be with the driver," ASIRT said in a release.
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The investigation found the driver had been using meth and hadn't slept for days leading up to the Feb. 28 incident, in which he rammed several civilian vehicles with a Ford F-350 before driving the wrong way on Deerfoot Trail and being rammed by several police officers before finally being shot.
The investigation found no wrongdoing on the part of the officers involved.
"This finding in no way diminishes the sad fact that a family has lost their loved one," ASIRT said in a release, adding that the organization "extends condolences to the family and friends of the deceased in relation to this tragic event."
The driver and the passenger, identified as Jason Roy and Ashley Silver, had been involved in a similar police chase a year earlier in which an RCMP vehicle was also rammed, and were well-known to police.