The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team is investigating an officer-involved shooting in parkade at Kingsway Mall parkade Friday.
EPS Insp. Brian Nowlan said officers were called to the mall Friday at about 11:40 a.m., after security saw a man cutting himself inside the mall, on the main floor, on closed-circuit security video.
Nowlan said mall security guards found the man, and ended up chasing him to the parkade, where police were waiting.
“We had about 4 or 5 officers on scene at the time, and found him here in the parking lot,” Nowlan said. “He made at least 3 separate attempts to charge our members, the third time resulting in one of our officers discharging a single round, which stopped the man.”
A witness, who did not want to be identified, told CTV News police had tried using pepper spray and a Taser, before the shot was fired.
“They were giving him orders to drop his weapon, drop down to the ground,” he said. “He wasn’t listening or obeying orders at all.
“They kept pepper spraying him, and it wasn’t working, then the Taser came out. The Taser didn’t work, and then, it looked like he was going to lunge at the police, and then the gun went off.”
The 31-year-old unidentified man was reportedly in serious condition when he was rushed to hospital.
ASIRT confirmed on Twitter that an investigation had been launched into the reported shooting Friday.
“ASIRT’s mandate is to conduct an independent, objective and thorough investigation into this incident,” Sarah Jackson with ASIRT said Friday.
Edmonton police closed off an area of the parkade for several hours Friday.
With files from Bill Fortier
