Video posted on social media shows man being shot at close range
CBC Indigenous: Videos posted on social media show a man being shot at close range by what appears to be a police officer.
The Nunavik Police Service said the incident happened at 4am on Monday. They confirmed an officer had fired his weapon, resulting in the death of one person and seriously injuring another.
Five investigators with Quebec’s police watchdog, Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI), are part of the investigation.
“The BEI investigates all cases where a person, other than a police officer on duty, dies, suffers a serious injury or is injured by a firearm used by a police officer during a police intervention or while being detained by a police force,” it said in a written statement in French.
The provincial police service, the Sûreté du Québec, is being brought in for support.
They are also running a parallel investigation.
The BEI has asked anybody who witnessed the event to contact them through their website.
This is the second investigation of police conduct in Salluit this year.
In July, a video circulated online of a woman being dragged by Nunavik police officers, while witnesses yelled that she was having a seizure.
Data from Quebec’s chief coroner’s office between 2000 and 2018 found Nunavik had more police-related deaths than any of Canada’s three territories, despite having a population about one-third of each territory.
The Nunavik Police Service rolled out body cameras on officers in 2020 in all 14 communities in the region.
They are not commenting further on this incident while the BEI investigation is underway.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Samuel Wat is a reporter with CBC Nunavut based in Iqaluit. He was previously in Ottawa, and in New Zealand before that. You can reach him at samuel.wat@cbc.ca
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