Decision not to charge Winnipeg officer who shot First Nations man shows need for change: grand chief

A Winnipeg officer who fatally shot a 22-year-old man while responding to an alleged assault last year won't face charges, Manitoba's police watchdog says.

It's another example of why changes are needed in police oversight in the province, particularly where Indigenous people are involved, says the grand chief of an advocacy organization.

The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba said in a news release Thursday that it had concluded its investigation into the death of Stewart Kevin Andrews, who was killed in April 2020.

The fatal police shooting was the third involving an Indigenous person in the city in a 10-day period, and followed the deaths of 16-year-old Eishia Hudson and 36-year-old Jason Collins. None of the incidents resulted in charges against a police officer.

The Manitoba Prosecution Service advised the investigation unit in early November — nearly eight months after receiving the file — there wasn't a reasonable likelihood of conviction in the case, according to the police watchdog.

Garrison Settee, grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, said the latest report "just goes to show that we're so far from where we need to be."

"Our people matter. Our people are not less than anybody else, and they should not be treated unfairly, and they should not be killed as if it's of no consequence," he said at a Thursday news conference, alongside leaders from God's Lake First Nation in northern Manitoba and two members of Andrews's family, who declined to speak.

That means adding Indigenous oversight at the unit, which currently has no Indigenous members, he said.

"This is a travesty. It is a tragedy that has happened and that leaves many victims in [its] wake. The family and the victims are suffering, and there's no resources. There's no support. There's no justice for them."

Settee said MKO is going to continue working with the investigative unit and the province to ensure changes are made to prevent similar deaths in the future.

On the day Andrews was killed, police said they were responding to a report that two males had assaulted someone near a home on Adsum Drive in north Winnipeg just after 4 a.m., the watchdog's final report said.

Police said a man who was taking out the garbage told them he was confronted by the males, who demanded cash. The man said one of the assailants hit him twice with a shovel, while the other appeared to have a gun.

That person — previously identified as a 16-year-old boy, who was safely taken into custody that morning — later told police the weapon he had was a BB gun, the report said.

One of the officers who responded to the call was a handler with a police dog, who said he saw two males in a back lane when he got there. One of them, later determined to be Andrews, was holding what appeared to be a long metal pipe, the officer said.