CALGARY — Officials say a man wounded when two police officers opened fire is recovering in hospital.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team is looking into whether the police actions were justified.
ASIRT executive director Clifton Purvis said the officers were in uniform in an unmarked vehicle when they tried to pull over an SUV just before 8 p.m. at Prairie Winds Park Wednesday night.
He said the emergency lights on the police car were activated.
Neither police, who cannot elaborate with details on how the event unfolded while the independent review is underway, nor ASIRT could comment on why the man was stopped.
Nor could they say if the man was known to police or if he was armed or if weapons were found in the black SUV.
At some point, officers opened fire and the man in his 30s was shot.
“The officers tried to stop a motor vehicle and during the traffic stop the police officers discharged their firearms,” Purvis said.
“One struck the operator of the motor vehicle and he suffered a head wound.”
The man who was shot was listed in stable condition at hospital Thursday.
Police Chief Rick Hanson said a recently developed policy requires officers involved in serious incidents to take 30 days off.
He said police are trained and prepared to use lethal force but “no police officer puts on his or her uniform on and goes out expecting this to happen.”
One of the officers is a four-year member while the other has one year on the job, he said.
He said police recently ramped up efforts in the area where the shooting happened given community complaints, which include drug trafficking, but he could not say what led police to the area at the time of the shooting.
ASIRT, an independent body, investigates serious incidents involving police and has taken on 44 incidents provincewide since 2008.