Video surfaces of Vancouver PD assassinating man down on all fours

[mzkitty]

You have to go to the link to see the video:

Boyd shooting probe reopened after video surfaces
CTV News Video
Maria Weisgarber on new video of police shooting
CTV Extended: Boyd gunned down by police


Paul Boyd lies dead after he was shot to death by police. Aug. 13, 2007. (CTV)


By: Andrew Weichel, ctvbc.ca

Date: Tuesday May. 29, 2012 4:15 PM PT



Shocking bystander video depicting the final moments of Paul Boyd, a bipolar man who was gunned down by Vancouver police in 2007, has led authorities to reopen the case.

B.C. Police Complaints Commissioner Stan Lowe confirmed Tuesday that the video, which shows Boyd had dropped to his hands and knees moments before being shot in the head, will be independently reviewed by a police agency in Alberta.

"It is important that our office maintains a principled and measured approach in this matter," Lowe said in a statement. "I have personally viewed the video and support the decision to reopen the investigation of this tragic incident."

Clifton Purvis, director of the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, has agreed to examine the footage and report back to authorities in B.C., Lowe said. The BC Coroners Service has also announced it will review its investigation and inquest into Boyd's death in light of the new video evidence.

Boyd was shot eight times in a span of 80 seconds on Aug. 13, 2007 by Const. Lee Chipperfield in the middle of Granville Street.

It appears the video, which was released Monday by the eyewitness who filmed it, begins with the seventh bullet being fired into Boyd's body.

The 39-year-old, who had moments earlier attacked officers with a bicycle chain, appears to drop his weapon and begins making guttural sounds. He then starts crawling on all fours towards a group of constables until a stopped car obscures the view.

Another shot, believed to be the one that pierced Boyd's face and killed him, is then fired off camera.

BC Civil Liberties Association executive director David Eby called the video "incredibly disturbing to watch," and said it affirms a number of troubling eyewitness accounts of the deadly confrontation.

Some witnesses recalled Boyd standing and continuing to threaten police when he was killed, but Eby said the recollection of those who remembered him unarmed and on all fours have proven more credible.

"The police complaint commissioner and the Criminal Justice Branch said ‘No, there's too much confusion for us to figure out what happened.' Well now there's a video, and we think it may well change their impression of what happened that evening."

‘I had already gone through that in my mind': father

Boyd's father Paul told CTV News that watching the video produced "very little emotional reaction" because he had already come to believe the version of events it depicts.

"It was a bit more visceral of course seeing it, but I had already gone through that in my mind."

He also said he's not holding his breath that it will for lead to real justice or accountability in his son's death.

"I never hope very much. I've seen what's happened over the past five years. The process drags out and it's forgotten … I've seen nothing come of it so far, and I frankly don't expect much to come of it now. I think the only difference now is the public may respond differently and realize what a travesty it was."

"Whether that makes any difference, I don't know."

The B.C. Criminal Justice Branch decided in 2009 not to lay charges against Chipperfield and in March, nearly five years after the incident, the police complaints commissioner ruled that he had not used excessive force.

Lowe acknowledged major discrepancies among witness accounts, but said at the time there was "no clear, convincing and cogent evidence" that warranted action against the officer.

Boyd, a professional animator, was manic and hadn't taken his medication the night he was killed, his psychiatrist told a 2010 coroner's inquest.

He was found kneeling on the ground at a bus stop with a hammer in hand by a group of four officers responding to 911 calls about a possible assault.

When one of the constables tried to handcuff him, Boyd struck him on the head with a bike chain, leaving a wound that would require stitches. He then hit another officer on the back with the weapon before running into the street.

The video of the resulting confrontation also appears to confirm the testimony of one constable who said he had time to run in and grab the chain from Boyd before the fatal shot was fired, something Chipperfield has testified he was not aware of.

There is an approximately 23-second gap between the two shots fired on the tape.

The coroner's inquest ended with the jury recommending that all officers be provided with intermediate weapons like bean-bag guns and Tasers to deal with distraught people.

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/l...shColumbiaHome

[mzkitty]

There's a video at the link too.

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Mistakes made in fatal shooting, former B.C. top cop says
One-time solicitor general Kash Heed critical of police actions in Paul Boyd death


Posted: May 30, 2012 7:38 PM PT
Last Updated: May 30, 2012 7:36 PM PT

A former B.C. solicitor general says amateur video released this week shows that Vancouver police failed to follow procedure in the shooting death of a mentally ill man.

On Wednesday, Liberal MLA Kash Heed screened the video taken by a tourist as police confronted Paul Boyd, who had become violent and threatening on a Vancouver street on the night of Aug. 13, 2007.

The incident ended after police fired a ninth shot, which hit Boyd in the head and killed him.

Heed, also a former Vancouver police superintendent and a former West Vancouver police chief, had supported the officers’ actions based on five previous investigations that laid no blame against them.

"After reviewing the incident I have a different opinion,” Heed said Wednesday. “I'm glad that we are now focusing on an outside agency to come in and review this incident. The minister of justice made the correct call here," Heed said.

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team has been called in by Attorney General Shirley Bond to examine the video and interview the man who recorded it. The BC Coroners service also said Tuesday it was reviewing the results of its inquest into Boyd’s death in light of the new information.

The cellphone video was shot by Andreas Bergen, of Winnipeg, who brought it to the attention of CBC News after becoming concerned when he read reports about the outcome of the investigations into the incident.
Previous finding criticized

Boyd can be seen in the video, crawling slowly on all fours toward Const. Lee Chipperfield, who fired the fatal round.

Heed said a well-trained officer would not have fired that shot under the circumstances.

"Because if the threat is no longer the threat that was posed originally, when you applied your force, of course, you must go to a different level to control the individual.”

Forensic psychologist Michael Elterman, who also screened the video Wednesday, agreed with Heed.

Elterman also dismissed a finding quoted that Chipperfield was under such great stress he was made “inattentionally blind” to the apparently reduced level of danger actually posed by Boyd.

“It’s difficult to understand how this theory of perceptual blindness, or inattentive blindness, could have been operating in this situation,” said Elterman. “Another theory is the police officer panicked."

It’s not known when the results of the Alberta police investigation will be made public.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...medium=twitter