Knife-wielding woman shot by Mountie found not criminally responsible

A knife-wielding woman who was shot four times by an RCMP officer on the Trans-Canada Highway near Carberry last May has been found not criminally responsible in Brandon provincial court.

Last week, a provincial judge accepted a joint recommendation from the Crown and defence that Jacqueline Armes was not criminally responsible for the charges of assaulting a police officer, possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose and mischief under $5,000.

“It’s a very serious matter … and I am satisfied that there are some complex psychiatric issues here, based on what I read in the forensic report,” Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta said.

Armes remains in custody and is scheduled to appear before the Mental Health Review Board on Jan. 5.

The incident took place on the Trans-Canada Highway near Road 88 West in the RM of North Cypress-Langford on May 12. Because the matter included an officer-involved shooting, the Independent Investigation Unit reviewed the circumstances.

The officer involved was cleared of any charges in September, but the IIU did not release a formal report to the public because Armes was dealing with criminal charges in relation to the incident.

The IIU released the report on Wednesday.

In its investigation, the IIU reviewed various forms of evidence, including body-worn camera footage and cellphone video footage. Investigators interviewed seven civilian witnesses, an RCMP officer who arrived on the scene after the shooting, and Armes herself.

Armes, who was not named in the IIU’s report, told the investigators during an interview the day after the incident that “she needed to pray on the side of the highway” and couldn’t “tell who was good or evil,” the report said.

She confirmed that she was holding a knife, didn’t drop it when the officer directed her to and kept moving toward him when he told her to stop, the report said.

The report said she denied being intoxicated and acknowledged that the officers were “just doing their job” and she “was a threat to society.”

Video footage from the officer’s body-worn camera showed Armes not complying with his demands, telling him to “f— off” and damaging vehicles, the report said. It said the officer was “pleading” with her to drop the weapon and stop moving toward him, or he “would be forced to shoot her.”

The “SO (subject officer) is back peddling as fast as he can to keep his distance from (her) and not be forced to shoot her,” the report said. “(She) can be heard asking SO to shoot her and refuses to stop moving towards SO while waving the knife in an aggressive manner.”

The footage showed the woman run at the officer, knife in hand, and the officer shooting at her five times, the report said. It said he removed a knife from her waistband before providing medical assistance.

Medical records confirmed that Armes received injuries from four gunshot wounds to her left shoulder, abdomen, right hand and right leg, the report found.

The officer refused to be interviewed by IIU investigators but gave them a use-of-force report.

In the report, he said he knew Armes from “previous dealings,” and while speaking with her, saw a knife in her waistband, so he kept his distance, the report said.

He said she stabbed at the tire of a passing vehicle and he believed she lunged at the passenger-side window of another vehicle with her weapon, the report said.

The report said the officer continued to tell Armes she was under arrest, but she would not comply with his orders, and when she continued to move toward him, he shot her from a distance of roughly five feet.

One witness told investigators that the woman stabbed one of his truck tires with a knife and that she tried to get inside before he pulled over and locked his doors, the report said.

He said she didn’t seem like she was “in the right frame of mind.”

Another witness was driving on the highway when he saw the woman moving toward an officer “while slashing and flailing her arm with what he believed to be a knife,” the report read.

He confirmed that the officer had his gun drawn, directing the woman to drop her weapon, but shot her when she didn’t comply and lunged at the officer.

A witness who came across the woman on the highway before police arrived said the woman threw something at his vehicle and kicked it, the report said. When he got out to assess the damage, he said she lunged at him, the IIU said.

Another driver said the woman climbed onto the hood of the truck, kicked his window and then climbed onto the roof, despite the officer telling her to get down, the report said.

It said the driver told investigators that after she jumped off the truck, he heard the officer yelling at the woman to stop and saying, “I don’t want to shoot you!”

» sanderson@brandonsun.com, with files from the Winnipeg Free Press