One man was shot in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Saturday morning, in what authorities confirmed to be a police-involved shooting.
Const. Tania Visintin, a spokesperson for the Vancouver police, said police shot and injured a man after an officer was allegedly attacked with a weapon while on patrol near the Hastings Street tent city.
She said two officers were sitting in their patrol car near East Hastings and Columbia Street at about 8 a.m. when a man carrying a weapon approached the police car and allegedly struck an officer through an open window.
During the altercation, shots were fired by a Vancouver police officer, Visintin said.
The officer sustained a serious head injury and was taken to the hospital for treatment. A 53-year-old suspect was injured and taken to hospital, where he remains in custody for assaulting the officer, Visintin said.
She said a second Vancouver police officer was later assaulted by a bystander, after he arrived to assist following the police-involved shooting.
“That officer was not seriously injured, and was able to continue his shift, after the suspect was arrested,” she said.
The Vancouver police Major Crime Section and the Independent Investigations Office of sa国际传媒 are investigating.
Jerret Veinot, who lives in the Downtown Eastside, told Postmedia News that upon hearing a banging sound arise at Columbia and Hastings street Saturday morning, they ran to see what was the commotion.
“I saw a man strike a police vehicle then drop what looked like a stick,” the 32-year-old said. “Two officers got out of the vehicle. One from the passenger side raised his gun and shot him two times in the chest.”
Another witness, Corwin Lumley, described the incident as scary.
“The police officer was aiming at his upper body,” he told Postmedia.
Security video of the incident — sent anonymously to Postmedia — shows a police cruiser trailing a man who is walking down Hastings Street before it stops and two officers emerge; one from either side of the vehicle. The man is then seen running down the street past the officer on the passenger side of the car before returning to face the officers and falling to the ground.
Photos and videos captured, shared on social media, show the man lying on the ground of the intersection and several police officers surrounding him.
Trey Helten, a local harm reduction worker who approached the scene after shots were fired, yelled at police gathered at the intersection: “Why’d you shoot him?” He recorded his question to officers on his cellphone.
An officer in plain clothes shouted back, saying it was because the man had stabbed someone.
