Police have not confirmed the man’s identity, but the family of Chris Amyotte, an Ojibwa man from Manitoba, says he was the one who died in the Downtown Eastside. Amyotte’s cousin, Samantha Wilson, said witnesses told her she was bear sprayed and calling for help before police arrived at the scene and Amyotte was unarmed. Sgt. Steve Addison of the Vancouver Police Department said the Bureau of Independent Investigations, B.C.’s police watchdog, had jurisdiction over the investigation. However, he said the VPD believed the man who died “asked for help from several bystanders, who did not offer help.” “When our officers arrived, they tried to verbally communicate with the man. Witnesses reported a confrontation,” he said in an emailed statement Thursday. Addison, who said at a press conference Monday that a shotgun was used, called the weapon a “safe and effective less lethal tool.” “It is used as an alternative to lethal force and can be deployed against a person who is acting violently or exhibiting aggressive behavior,” Addison said in the statement. He said the IIO would determine whether the man who died had a gun, but “possession of a gun is not required to deploy a beanbag shotgun.” The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples said it was “outraged” to hear of the death. Kim Beaudin, the organization’s national vice president, said in a statement Thursday that Amyotte’s death was a tragedy that highlighted the “profound and ongoing failures of police when dealing with indigenous people at risk.” “Indigenous people are 10 times more likely to be shot and killed by police in Canada, and it’s time for it to stop,” he said in the statement. Wilson said Amyotte, who was from the Rolling River First Nation in Manitoba, arrived in Vancouver on Aug. 17 to visit family members. Days later, the family would learn the father of seven had died, Wilson said. “It’s not something you expect to be told. I’m very angry,” she said in an interview Thursday. After hearing the news, Wilson said she looked on social media to see if she could get more information. She said she contacted witnesses who told her Amyotte was the victim of a bear spray attack and was calling for help when he took off some of his clothes and started pouring milk on himself to try to fight off the spray. A Vancouver police press release said Monday that a man was taken into custody after an “interaction” with officers, but suffered a medical problem and lost consciousness. “Despite life-saving efforts, the man died at the scene,” the statement said. The IIO said Tuesday it was called in to investigate the incident, which began with calls to police responding to a report of a man acting erratically. He said an investigation has been launched to determine what, if any, police actions or inactions played a role in the man’s death. Wilson said she would like to see the officers involved held accountable. “I would like to see them charged. He asked for help many times. (Witnesses) said he wasn’t a threat to public safety, he wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. They said he had his hands in the air before he was shot. He had no weapon. He had a jug of milk in his hand,” he said. “He was an unarmed native who was calling for help and when help arrived, they took his life.” He said Amyotte’s family members from Manitoba traveled to Vancouver to help arrange for Amyotte’s body to be transported to Rolling River, where he will be buried. “My nieces and nephews have to live without their father,” Wilson said. “My family is making arrangements to bring him home and we don’t even know if these officers have been placed on administrative leave or if they are still working the streets. We don’t know anything.” While the IIO said it cannot comment on specific cases, spokeswoman Rebecca Whalen said there have been 16 shootings in BC since the start of its fiscal year in April. That, he said, has already doubled the eight shootings he investigated last year. “There are more (shootings) this year,” she said in an interview Thursday. “Now, I can’t speculate why that might be – there could be any number of reasons – but all we know is that there has been an increase this year.” However, he noted that a beanbag gun would not be classified as firing a firearm, and would instead fall under the use of force category. “We don’t actually track statistics on the use of a beanbag gun specifically,” he said. In its 2021-22 annual report, the office reported 39 incidents of use of force last year. It reported that the use of force was “the main cause of serious harm in 28 per cent of all serious harm investigations”. – By Brieanna Charlebois in Vancouver and Brittany Hobson in Winnipeg This report by The Canadian Press was first published on August 25, 2022.
