The province released a fatality inquiry into the death of a woman in her 40s at the hands of police back in January, 2010 – it was found police could not have done anything differently in the situation they faced that day.
The inquiry was released surrounding the shooting death of Bernadette Auger, 48, on Jan. 16, 2010 – and outlined the events leading up to the woman raising a toy pistol at police, who fatally shot her.
The night before, the report said Auger had been in an argument with her sons – and the next morning, she was still angry, and eventually called 911.
Her common law husband took the phone from her, told the dispatcher Auger was drunk, and then hung up the phone – regardless, the dispatcher called back and said police had been sent to the home anyways.
When police arrived and were let in, they found Auger standing at the top of the stairs, holding what appeared to be a gun – and ignored police when they asked her to drop it, pointing it at the officers and following them as they retreated down the stairs.
The officers left the apartment building, and requested backup – at the same time, Auger went back into her apartment, called 911, and asked the dispatcher to send the police back.
Auger then went out to the parking lot of the building, where three other officers had arrived as backup for the first two – one of those officers was a Dog Master with his police service dog, and all of the officers had taken cover behind dumpsters and vehicles in the parking lot.
The inquiry said the officer with the dog believed Auger was not a serious threat, and moved out from behind the dumpster to release his police service dog in an effort to disable her – however, when he moved out from behind the dumpster, Auger pointed what looked like a pistol at the officer.
At this both the officer with the dog and another officer on the scene shot her.
Police later discovered Auger had been holding a plastic Airsoft toy pistol, which had been painted black – and looked nearly identical to a police-issued firearm.
According to the report, Auger had suffered brain damage and chronic pain related to a car crash six years before, and had a number of different prescription medications in her system, all of which had sedative effects.
The sedative effects were exacerbated by alcohol, she was found to have three times the legal limit in her system.
It’s believed Auger had wanted to commit suicide, by forcing police to shoot her – her common law husband told police later that she had attempted to take her own life in the past after the car crash.
The report concluded that in this case, there was nothing police could have done differently.
