On Saturday, Calgary Police shot and fatally wounded Latjor Tuel. At the time of his death, he was experiencing a mental health crisis. Tuel came to Canada twenty years ago as a refugee from Sudan, where he had been a child soldier. Public Intellectual and Prof of Law at the University of Alberta: Ubaka Ogbogu said: “I am still struggling to understand why the Calgary Police showed up for a mental health intervention with lights, combat weapons, and a police dog. Or why this approach is acceptable in a civilized society.
Why is there no other number to call? Why are cities, health systems and those who run them allowing mental health calls to go to the police as first responders?
Media reports indicate that Tuel was shot five times. ASIRT suggests that he had a knife. A small knife is seen in the picture they provided.
The entire situation could have been de-escalated by the officers who attended. The question is, was it necessary to have fatally wounded Tuel?
Here is how Alberta. news reports the fatal shooting:
“On Feb. 19, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) was directed to investigate the death of a 41-year-old man after an encounter with Calgary Police Service (CPS) officers earlier that day.
At around 3:41 p.m., CPS received 911 calls about a man on 17 Avenue S.E. near 44 Street holding a stick and a knife. One caller reported that the man had hit someone with the stick.
At 3:46 p.m., the first officers arrived on the scene and located the man, who was still holding the stick and the knife. More officers arrived and surrounded the man from a distance. Video of the incident shows that the man was sitting down on the sidewalk while officers spoke to him. Officers can be heard on the video repeatedly telling the man to drop the knife or throw the knife away.
The video shows that the man started to get up and move at 4:02 p.m. An officer then discharged less-lethal baton rounds at him. The man stood up and began to run in the direction of a group of police officers and police vehicles. A police service dog on a lead was allowed to approach the man as he approached the front of the police vehicles. Video shows that the dog’s handler pulled the dog back, upon which the man advanced in the direction of the dog and the handler. In the ensuing altercation, the man swung the stick and stabbed the knife at the dog while the dog bit the man and officers used conductive energy weapons on him.
At the back of the police vehicle and still holding the knife and stick, police officers were near him on many sides. A confrontation occurred between the man and the officers, during which two officers discharged their firearms. The man fell to the ground. Officers approached the man and moved the knife and stick away from him.
Emergency medical services were waiting nearby, and CPS officers provided medical care to the man at the scene. Their efforts were unsuccessful, and the man was pronounced dead”.
Calgary Police Service Constable Mark Newfeld would not comment on the number of shots fired by the Police. He did say ‘the call the police responded to was not a mental health call but an assault call of a man with a knife and a stick. It was a police call and the police responded’. Officers unsuccessfully tried to seperate the man from the weapons. The man refused to surrender the weapons: knife and stick. The police had in their mind that Tuel had weapons and he had committed an assault.
The video circulating on social media is hard to watch and it remains unclear what type of de-escalation methods Calgary Police used before they fatally wounded Latjor Tuel. Calgary has more officer shooting that any place in Canada. Police Brutality is a fact – as at Saturday Police Chief Newfeld had not contacted the family of the deceased.
To support the family to find justice for Latjor Tuel, here is a Go Fund Me.
