
Security footage from ASIRT Incident Report
No charges for RCMP officer in 2021 fatal airport shooting: ASIRT
Alberta’s police watchdog has cleared an RCMP officer in the 2021 shooting death of a man armed with a knife outside the Fort McMurray International Airport. The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) concluded that the officer’s use of lethal force was legally justified after multiple failed attempts to subdue the man with less lethal weapons.
According to the ASIRT report, RCMP responded to the airport just before 6 a.m. on October 15, 2021, after receiving a call about a man in a taxi holding a knife to his neck. Officers arrived to find the man still in the vehicle, visibly distressed, and allegedly under the influence of drugs. For more than 30 minutes, police negotiated with the man, who made repeated references to explosions and “blowing up a plane.”
When the man exited the taxi, officers attempted to stop him with a rubber bullet from an extended range impact weapon, followed by two Taser deployments. The man appeared largely unaffected. ASIRT said that although one of the Taser deployments briefly knocked him down, he quickly got up and sprinted toward the airport doors with a 10 inch knife still in hand.
At that point, the subject officer fired multiple rounds from a police issued carbine rifle. The man was struck five times in the back, elbow, buttock, and thigh and collapsed on the pavement. Paramedics already staged nearby immediately provided medical aid and transported him to hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. An autopsy confirmed the cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds, with toxicology showing high levels of methamphetamine and cocaine.
“The use of force was proportionate to the threat posed,” ASIRT wrote. “The officer believed, on reasonable grounds, that the man posed an immediate and lethal danger to people inside the airport.” Investigators also considered the possibility of officers blocking the terminal doors but found that this would not have eliminated the risk given the man’s momentum, weapon, and erratic behavior.
The man, referred to in the report as the “affected person,” had ignored repeated police commands to drop the weapon and stop advancing. Civilian and police witnesses said he appeared to alternate between erratic laughter and threats, including demands to board a plane and comments about bombing it. One officer inside the terminal had attempted to brace a door shut but ASIRT noted two other entry points remained unguarded.
ASIRT emphasized that while officers are not held to a standard of perfection, they must act within a range of reasonableness. In this case, investigators said the officer’s decision to fire was made in a split second to protect public safety and prevent the man from reaching the terminal interior.
“The death of the affected person is tragic,” the report concluded. “However, under both Section 25 and Section 34 of the Criminal Code, the use of force was legally justified. The officer acted lawfully and appropriately in the execution of his duties.”
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