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Man, said to be armed with knife, fatally shot by Nanaimo RCMP

B.C.’s police watchdog is investigating after a man was shot and killed by police on a Nanaimo street on Tuesday. RCMP officers went to the area of Norwell Drive and Highway 19A, near Wellington Secondary School, about 10:20 a.m.
Scene of police-involved shooting in Nanaimo. photo
Scene of police-involved shooting in Nanaimo on Tuesday, June 14, 2016.

B.C.’s police watchdog is investigating after a man was shot and killed by police on a Nanaimo street on Tuesday.

RCMP officers went to the area of Norwell Drive and Highway 19A, near Wellington Secondary School, about 10:20 a.m. after receiving a report of a man carrying a knife.

A man was found nearby on Country Club Drive and shots were fired by police during the ensuing encounter.

The man died in hospital.

No police officers or members of the public were injured.

An RCMP cruiser with a yellow tarp over the back window was blocked off by police tape in the parking lot of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, on Departure Bay Road, while investigators secured the scene.

B.C.’s Independent Investigations Office, which responds to deaths or serious injuries that involve police, sent investigators to Nanaimo and now has jurisdiction over the case, said spokesman Aidan Buckley.

Few details are being released as the investigation gets underway. “We’ll be canvassing for witnesses and obtaining the physical evidence,” Buckley said.

Dairy Queen janitor David McLellan spotted a man brandishing with a knife in the restaurant’s parking lot.

“He was standing over here. Over by these trees here and he was just holding a knife with both hands holding it straight up and he was looking around, looking around like he was looking around for somebody to do harm to, or maybe to himself, I’m not sure,” McLellan told CHEK television.

McLellan reported what was happening to the owners of the restaurant.

The man raced along Norwell Drive, toward the church.

“He was holding the handle with both hands and the blade was just sticking up and he was walking around,” McLellan said.

He said the man was also wearing heavy winter boots.

“That really caught my eye, you know,” he said. “You had a bad feeling. Yeah, I had a bad feeling that he was going to end up doing something to somebody.”

Rob Waine, a church elder, was at St. Andrew’s for a meeting when he heard what sounded like thunder.

“A couple of minutes later, we heard a sound,” he said. “Nobody commented on it at all, but through my mind I thought, ‘It sounds like a gunshot, or maybe two.’ That’s really all it was.”

A few minutes later, sirens could be heard, Waine said. The meeting room did not provide a view of the parking lot.

Upon going outdoors, Waine found that police had the area taped off. About six police cars and an ambulance were on site, he said.

“It was pouring with rain, so we put on a pot of coffee and opened the doors.”

Waine called the incident “extremely disturbing.”

“To think of something like that happening just 100 feet away from where we were, unbeknownst to us,” he said.

“I’ve just felt sad since then. … To think that happened in our community, so close. I feel sorry for everybody involved.”