A police officer who shot an armed Richmond man during a standoff after the hostage-taking of his ex-girlfriend, said he shot him because he was pointing his gun at him and moving toward him and other officers.
Delta police constable Jordan MacWilliams told a coroner’s inquest on Thursday he shot Mehrdad Bayrami as he advanced beyond the 20-metre limit set by the officer’s commanders.
MacWilliams testified he was wearing a helmet and body armour and was shielded by one of the two armoured vehicles surrounding Bayrami after he started pacing in circles during the four-hour-plus standoff on Nov. 8, 2012. MacWilliams was one of several police officers, including snipers.
The armoured vehicle was 21 metres from Bayrami, who was in a standoff with police near the Starlight Casino parking where earlier he had forced Tetiana Peltsina into her car. He then dragged her to a paved pathway near the lot before letting her go, but he refused to surrender to police negotiators or drop his handgun.
Once Bayrami stood up, he was “advancing” on the officers, MacWilliams said.
“I could see he had lowered the gun and now he was pointing it straight at us,” he said. “As soon as I saw him pointing it at us, I fired.
“It seemed very deliberate. He was walking with a purpose toward us. I don’t know what that purpose was.
“My focus was that I kept my friends and myself safe,” he said, adding the heads and legs of the officers were exposed behind the armoured vehicle.
MacWilliams had also said he had heard an officer say “watch out, he’s getting really close” to the 20-metre limit, and that he fired after hearing a senior tactical member command another officer to deploy the less lethal Arwen gun that shoots rubber bullets.
New Westminster police Const. Cliff Kusch, who testified he shot Bayrami with four rubber bullets, said he hadn’t heard the command to shoot the Arwen.
He and other officers said the impact of the rubber bullets made Bayrami take steps backward, but he neither dropped or let go of the gun until he was shot by MacWilliams with a carbine Stag 15 rifle.
MacWilliams said he was concerned for the safety of his immediate emergency response team members in and around the armoured vehicle as well as the detectives and negotiators behind them. “And behind us was the Queensborough Landing Shopping Centre,” he said.
At the hearing earlier in the week, Piltsina testified that Bayrami was harassing her after they broke up in 2012, but Richmond RCMP didn’t take it seriously, at first.
Piltsina said she was scared and Bayrami was following her everywhere.
She says he even put a GPS tracker in her car, calling her 60 to 70 times a day.
Piltsina says finally a female Richmond Mountie became involved and actually listened.
The hearing was set to conclude on Tuesday.
