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from the Ottawa Citizen
Thursday, October 5, 2000
Frank Hutterer's death after a knife attack on his wife and neighbours marked the eighth time in 10 years a suspect has been killed after being shot by police.
The provincial Special Investigations Unit, which was in the area last night to investigate the shooting in Stittsville, is automatically called in when there is serious injury or death in the course of making an arrest, a death during a police pursuit or a death while a suspect is in police custody.The officers involved will have access to counselling to assist them with the trauna of such an event, said Ottawa-Carleton Police Insp. Doug Handy.
A critical-incident stress management team made up of rank and file officers is trained to help colleagues deal with the aftermath and how it might affect their family and coworkers. The civilian Victim Crisis Unit, which helps victims of crime and people who have lost loved ones, is also available to the officers. An in-house support group called Robin's Blue Circle is made up of officers who've been involved in or witnessed a shooting, or been shot or threatened themselves.
In August, Perry Hoover, 38, was shot in the abdomen and wrist as officers tried to defuse a domestic dispute off Pleasant Park Road. His dog was shot and killed. Prior to that, police had gone for more than two years without discharging their weapons at suspects.
Previous fatal police shootings include:
In February 1997; Charles
Cooper, 34, a suicidal man
armed with a knife, was shot in
the chest with a beanbag gun, a
supposed non-lethal weapon.
The beanbag lodged in Mr.
Cooper's heart and killed him.
A tactical unit member, whose
name was never released, was
cleared by the SIU.
Also in February 1997, Jamal Khouri,49, was shot and killed at his LeBreton Street North home by Const. Sandra Buckley after he stabbed her partner, Const. Steve Boucher. The SIU cleared both officers.
• In May 1996, Darwin Francisco Tellez Gonzalez, 26, was shot and killed in the hallway of his Lowertown apartment by police as he held a knife to the throat of a male hostage and threatened to kill him.
In July 1995, Troy Emmerson, 24, was shot and killed by Const Dan Delaney after a three hour standoff outside his south-end Ottawa apartment.
The shooting was controversial because Mr. Emmerson was suicidal and refused to drop the gun he was holding to his own head. The SIU ruled that the shooting was justified.
In August 1992, Frank Chartier, 39, was shot and killed by Ottawa police Const. David Nurse as Mr. Chartier attacked him with a firehose in a Lowertown apartment building. SIU ruled that the shooting was justified.
In March 1992, Wayne Cecil Williams, 25, was killed by Ottawa police Sgt. Dan Desrochers when the robbery suspect's accomplice was seen pointing what turned out to be a fake gun.
In September 1991 in one of the most controversial police shootings, Vincent Gardner, 49, was shot during a botched drug bust. The officer shot Mr. Gardner believing he was carrying a weapon. In fact, it was a guitar. Mr. Gardner died two months later. An inquest ruled he died as the result of the bullet wound and liver cancer that was discovered while he was being operated on for his bullet wound.
Const John Monette, the officer
who shot him, was acquitted of
manslaughter in 1993.
With files from Dave Rogers
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.
They are still printing false information about the Vincent Gardner case.
Vincent Gardner was not holding any guitar because he was not a musician. According to the residents and guests at the house that day, there was a guitar on the floor beside where Vincent was seated on the couch when the police broke into the house with drawn guns. When he jumped up in alarm, the young Monette who had been psyched up at a briefing earlier to expect violence from these Jamaican Rastafarians, shot Gardner. The cops made up the story about the guitar.
Furthermore, Gardner had cancer of the liver which was in remission at the time of the shooting. At first the coroner said cause of death was not the shooting but the cancer. Then when the Gardner family attorney called in other experts, they said that the bullet reactivated the cancer and both caused his death.
In a court case that was a mockery of justice, Monette was treated like a celebrity by the judge, police officers in the courtroom glared menacingly at Gardner supporters (including myself) and the defence attorney for Monette, Eddy Greenspan outdid himself with a bit of courtroom theatre during which he repeatedly thrust Gardner's blood stained jacket in the face of Gardner's widow. Every time he did this, she gasped and ran from the courtroom.
Please see also a poem called Eunice's Heart by Jennifer Tsun
Send your comments and stories of police brutality to: ruitsdawtah@Hotmail.com
This page created October 6, 2000
