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Still no closure in 2008 police shooting

Family, band waiting for answers four years later

By: Kevin Rollason

Friday, Aug. 3, 2012 at 8:26 AM | Comments: 0

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS archives Brian McDougall (centre) comforts a family member after his son's death in 2008. (CNS)

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Craig McDougall was killed in 2008.

It has been four full years since Craig McDougall was shot and killed by Winnipeg police in the front yard of his father's house, but his family and home reserve are still waiting for answers.

Despite the passage of four years since the fatal shots were fired on Aug. 2, 2008, McDougall's family and the Wasagamack First Nation have still not heard whether the officers involved will be charged in an internal police investigation into the shooting. The delay in that investigation is holding up a mandatory provincial inquest.

Bob Norton, a private investigator hired by the band to look into the killing, said it has taken far too long for progress to be made.

"It's not fair for the family," Norton said on Thursday.

"I shot a guy when I was a RCMP officer, so I know it's also not fair to the officers, too. It's taken two years for Winnipeg police to investigate, another 14 months for another police department to investigate and then the Crown sends it for external review. We are now at the four-year mark and whether they decide now whether it is criminal matter or an inquest is needed, it will still be another year.

"That's too long."

McDougall, 26, was shot by police, who had been called to a Simcoe Street residence to investigate a disturbance.

Police have said he was shot after refusing repeated orders to drop a knife, but witnesses have said the man was holding a cellphone. Winnipeg police Chief Keith McCaskell assured media at the time a knife was seized at the scene of the shooting.

A Winnipeg police spokesman could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Wasagamack First Nation Chief Alex McDougall -- who is also Craig McDougall's cousin -- could not be reached for comment on Thursday, but in December 2011, more than three years after the shooting, he criticized the delay, saying "an inquiry is needed to see what can be done to improve the service to the general population and how the police force assesses situations like this one.

"We don't have the information from police on how they reacted to the situation. Were they too quick to make their assessment and make a decision where a fatality would be the end result? How can we mitigate that so it doesn't happen again?"

Norton said things might have moved faster if a long-promised independent investigations unit was already in place.

A provincial government spokesman said the Chief Medical Examiner's Office has an open file on the matter, but can't call an inquest until police are finished investigating and any court process is completed.

As well, the spokesman said the legislation creating the independent investigations unit has not been proclaimed yet, but work is still underway to hire a civilian director of the unit.

The spokesman also said the Manitoba Police Commission, which is in the process of being set up, will train civilian monitors to play a role in any future investigation.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

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