A police officer was recovering from surgery and doing well Sunday, just a day after being attacked by a machete-wielding man in a Calgary shopping mall.
It was one of two incidents that occurred in the space of an hour Saturday afternoon, in which Calgary police officers made the choice to open fire on suspects in the unrelated incidents.
An officer was injured in the incident at Marlborough Mall, but the severely wounded officer was able to stop the allegedly armed and violent suspect with a bullet.
The risk to the public was tremendous, Calgary’s police union boss said of the suspect who was allegedly armed with a 20-inch machete in the middle of a Sears store.
Howard Burns said the officer who drew the line between himself and the public as he was being slashed, undertook the correct course of action. The officer shot the suspect before anybody else could be hurt.
“He (the man with the machete) wasn’t acting in a rational manner and he was armed with that,” Burns said. “He was a tremendous danger to the public.
“Our officer obviously did the right thing because if somebody like that goes unchecked, somebody else is probably going to be killed,” he added. “That’s why the police are out there — to protect the public from situations just like that.”
The incident started around 2 p.m. at a nearby LRT platform, where police were called to investigate reports of a man with a weapon fighting with several other people.
Witness Kayla Perrin told Postmedia what she saw of the incident.
“I was coming off the 45 (bus route), and when I went up the stairs, I saw a little altercation going on,” she said. “They looked like they were just fighting and arguing. (But), he pulled out a knife and started chasing somebody.
“It was a white guy; he was wearing a Blue Jays shirt and a red hat,” she added.
The man had fled by the time officers arrived, but was soon found behind a dumpster by a patrolling officer who chased him into the mall, where gunfire would soon erupt.
The relatively junior member of the police force suffered slashes from the blade to his shoulder and arm.
The suspect is stable following surgery as well, though he was in critical condition in the immediate aftermath of being shot.
Most of the battle between the Calgary cop and the 20-year-old suspect at the Marlborough Mall Sears store was captured by video surveillance cameras.
Alberta Serious Incident Response Team executive director Susan Hughson said Sunday that the amount of video her people have is considerable and of good quality.
Hughson said Sunday the lone officer chased the suspect through the store, hitting him with a Taser to no avail, before the incident came down to a pistol versus the suspect’s machete scenario.
“It’s a very good thing that nobody died in that incident,” she said.
There’s been no word yet on potential charges against the suspect.
Hughson has brought Edmonton investigators to Calgary to help the local ASIRT team while the province’s police watchdog has a look at the Marlborough Mall incident and another unrelated incident that occurred just an hour earlier.
In that second incident, Hughson said, an officer opened fire as a truck was driving toward him in the Blackfoot Truck Stop parking lot.
Before that, the officer had approached a suspicious vehicle — one of three parked in a triangle — Hughson said, and spotted a rifle in the front with the 23-year-old driver, who ignored the officer’s directions.
It’s alleged the driver then threw the truck in reverse and slammed into another vehicle before taking a run at the officer.
Unharmed by the gunfire, the driver struck metal posts and a gas meter, triggering a gas leak, Hughson said. He got out and tried to flee on foot before being hit with a Taser and taken into custody; he’ll face charges and was also wanted on an outstanding warrant.
Police took a 15-year-old female from the truck as well.
“She had very little involvement in the incident,” Hughson said, adding it’s not clear what her relationship with the suspect is.
Hughson said it’s difficult to say how long the investigations will take.
“How the officers conducted themselves is the very subject of our investigation,” she said. “Our job is to determine, through the evidence, whether the officers’ conduct was reasonable and justified, or whether there was an unreasonable level of force used.
“And, it’s equally as important to find that the force used was reasonable, as it is to hold an officer accountable when the force used is not.”
Earlier in the weekend, Deputy Chief Trevor Daroux praised the officers involved in both incidents.
“This officer (involved in the incident at Marlborough Mall) showed extreme courage and restraint and we’re very fortunate that it isn’t more serious than it is,” he said. “We train for it (this type of situation); we hope that it doesn’t occur; but, it can happen.
“I can’t speak enough about the courageous efforts of our officers and the work that they did. Our officers did an amazing job and I stand behind them, as does the entire service.”
The officer in the Marlborough Mall incident has been with the CPS for about two years.
The officer who opened fire in the Blackfoot Truck Stop incident has roughly 20 years experience with the department.
Saturday wasn’t the kind of day any officer wanted to see, Burns said, calling it “horrible.”
“Everyone would sooner not have days like today, but it certainly illustrates the danger of being a police officer in the city of Calgary,” he said. “To have multiple situations happen in short order was unusual, but you never know what you’re dealing with.”
dwood@postmedia.com