'We left seconds before': Witnesses recount fatal police incident in Campbell River, B.C.

Cassandra Simms and Daniel Glendale were out for a walk in Campbell River, B.C., on Saturday when Glendale heard shots being fired in the direction of their apartment in the North Island Highway and Park Road area.

"They were really loud. We were just on (the south side) of the bridge when they went off," Glendale told CTV News on Monday.

When they returned to their apartment, they found police vehicles all through the area as they began their investigation into the shooting of a man by RCMP.

The pair then reviewed their surveillance camera footage and saw it had captured a robbery suspect running onto the grounds of the complex, then later pointing what appeared to be a gun at a police officer as he ran towards him.

"We left seconds before it all went down," said Simms. "We looked at our camera and that’s when we saw most of it."

THREE SHOTS HEARD

Simms believes the suspect ran into the unit where he had previously visited and ran into difficulties as he was being followed by police.

"From what we are assuming, he tried to escape through the back stairwell and couldn’t, so he ran, tried to look back and forth, and ended up running into that cop," she said.

The video shows the officer drawing his weapon and backing away from the suspect as the suspect runs past the officer. A shot is heard followed by two more that are fired after the pair are no longer visible on the footage.

The video is now in the hands of the Independent Investigation Office of B.C. (IIO) who are conducting an investigation on the shooting. The Chief Civilian Director for the organization says the incident began when police were called to the report of a theft at a nearby sporting goods store by a man with a weapon.

"On Saturday shortly after 11:30 [a.m.] police received a complaint about a male [who] had entered the River Sportsman store on the Island Highway," said IIO director Ron MacDonald.

"Police were notified that he had a weapon, police responded. In their attempt to locate and stop the male there was an interaction, shots were fired," he said.

AMBULANCE LATER CALLED

A witness, who did not want to be identified, told CTV News she saw a man face down on the ground with his hands handcuffed behind him. She said the man was "incoherent and appeared out of it" when he was placed by officers into the back seat of a police cruiser.

She says a short time afterwards, an officer went to check on the suspect and then yelled for assistance from her colleagues and he was removed from the cruiser and they attempted to revive him by performing CPR.

MacDonald says the suspect was transported to hospital by ambulance but died while on route.

"At this point in time while we believe the man was shot, we’re still not certain of the cause of death and that will obviously be determined this week during an autopsy," MacDonald said.

The organization that looks into police-involved shootings will have a number of questions they will try to answer.

"Part of our investigation will of course look at the justification for the use of force that involved the taking of the shots by an officer – but also at the care provided to the individual and whether there are any issues with that, and that will include a consideration of when the ambulance was there, how he was dealt with by paramedics and police, when he was taken away, those types of things," said MacDonald.

MacDonald says the role of officers changes during incidents such as this.

"As we see in so many of our cases, as soon as someone is shot their duty goes from protecting their lives and the lives of others to protecting the life of the person who was just shot," said the IIO director.

"We frequently see police officers go from being the one who causes the harm to the one who’s attempting to give first aid and save life," he said.

Former Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police and CTV Public Safety Analyst Chris Lewis says, generally, if anyone is any sort of emergency an ambulance is called instantly.

"If that health emergency is caused by the actions of police, it becomes an Independent Investigation Office priority investigation," he said.

Lewis says while the IIO will investigate the death of the member of the public, the RCMP will conduct their own investigation to determine if any procedural violations were committed by police and also if there was any attempted violence by the suspect.

"For a police officer to use deadly force there had to be a fear of grievous bodily harm on that officer or some other officer or a member of the public," he said.

The IIO is asking for any members of the public who feel like they have further information on the matter to contact them on their toll-free witness line at 1-855-446-8477 or through the www.iiobc.ca website.