Van Ho was inside his sixth-floor Main Street apartment when he heard a ruckus in the hall around noon Wednesday afternoon.
Ho looked out his window to see police and emergency vehicles surrounding the 10-storey North Point Douglas Manor. When he peeked into the hallway, he saw the body of his next-door neighbour being carried away.
“I thought somebody was fighting, then I open my door and that’s what I see,” Ho saidThursday afternoon.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
The apartment building at 817 Main Street, where police shot and killed a man, on Thursday.
The Vietnamese immigrant moved to the building four years ago. He said his neighbour, who has not been identified, moved into the Manitoba Housing complex about two months ago, but often caused excessive noise at night and kept him awake.
“All night, I can’t sleep and all day it’s quiet,” Ho said. “He was always doing something.”
Winnipeg police shot and killed the man Wednesday after multiple 911 calls reported he was armed with, and swinging, edged weapons and banging on tenants’ doors.
Officers at the scene found the man armed in the hallway and deployed a Taser, then shot him, Winnipeg Police Service acting chief Art Stannard said at a last-minute news conference Wednesday evening.
Stannard said the calls suggested there was a risk to the public and officers “reacted to the actions of this person.”
“These members are dedicated police officers, officers who did not ever want to take a life,” he said.
Officers provided the man emergency care in the form of a tourniquet and chest seal before being transported to the hospital in critical condition. He later died.
The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba is probing the incident.
Sue Caribou, another resident of the 817 Main St. building said once she heard sirens, she locked her doors and stayed inside her suite.
Caribou described seeing police cruisers drive up onto the sidewalk in front of her building before officers filed out and ran through the front doors.
“It was unreal,” Caribou said.
The building was quiet Thursday morning after news of the shooting spread, Caribou said, adding she was surprised it happened.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Sue Caribou is a tenant of the apartment building at 817 Main Street.
“This is like a big family here, we look after each other,” she said.
Across the street at the Northern Hotel, owner Keith Horn said the building has shaped up in the last few years. Prior to the last decade, the 120-unit complex was a magnet for crime and drug use.
“You would see people in taxis lined up waiting to buy or sell drugs,” he said.
The building is monitored by security guards between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. daily, according to Ho and Caribou, but people on the street have tried to sneak in through the front entrance as residents come and go.
Ho regularly reports incidents to security but prefers not to get involved in disputes.
“I live by myself, I keep to myself,” he said.
Caribou said the event wouldn’t force her from the building, which she’s called home for 14 years.
“I take care of the people and the elders here,” she said. “But I’ll be locking my doors more after this.”
Jene-Rene Dominique Kwilu, the lawyer representing the family of 19-year-old Afolabi Opaso, who was shot and killed by police at an apartment on University Crescent in December, said a review into police responses for these incidents is paramount.
“There is a better response to this type of thing,” Kwilu said, noting the incidents are beginning to become a pattern.
According to friends and family, Opaso was having a mental health crisis when police responded to reports of a man wielding knives inside a suite, which led to the use of force.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Keith Horn, owner of the Northern Hotel, speaks with media about the police shooting that took place in an apartment building across the street on Thursday.
The lawyer applauded the recent news the province would be reviewing the Mental Health Act and exploring ways to de-escalate police involvement during mental health calls.
“We don’t want to eliminate the police, but when you look at this type of encounter, something needs to change,” Kwilu said. “There needs to be a shift in culture.”
In April, Justice Minister Matt Wiebe said the province was in the process of reviewing policing standards after Opaso’s shooting and another involving 59-year-old Bradley Singer, who was shot and killed by Winnipeg police in mid-February while he was in the throes of a mental health crisis.
The 2024 budget included funding for additional mental health staff to work alongside law enforcement.
Wiebe said the policing review was to ensure “incidents like these ones never happen again.”
Since April, three people have been shot by Winnipeg police and two have died.
The families of Singer and Opaso have demanded a joint inquest into the men’s deaths and asked that it be fast-tracked. Kwilu said an inquiry is coming — as is legislated in an officer-involved shooting — but he has been given no timeline as to when it is expected to begin.
nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca
Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer
Nicole Buffie is a multimedia producer who reports for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom in 2023. Read more about Nicole.
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