Public prosecution service clears officers who injured Kinngait, Nunavut, man

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada says two officers were justified in shooting a man in Kinngait, Nunavut, on Oct. 15, 2021.

The 30-year-old man was injured in the shooting, but not seriously, according to information from the RCMP at the time.

At the time, the RCMP declined to have a separate police force, like the Ottawa Police Service, investigate the shooting and instead engaged RCMP members from another jurisdiction in Ontario to investigate what happened. They said they did that because the incident "was not a major police incident" and the injury was not serious.

The Public Prosecution Service said it looked at the results of that investigation for its own review of the matter and found no grounds to believe the officers had committed a crime in shooting the man.

"The evidence indicated that the officers involved, along with other RCMP officers and members of the public, faced an immediate and dangerous threat," the prosecution service said in a news release on Jan. 5.

CBC previously reported that police had posted to social media that day saying there was "a report of shots fired near the RCMP detachment" and asking residents of the south Baffin community of about 1,500 people to stay inside. About 15 minutes later, they posted again to say they had one person in custody.

The news release from the prosecution service states that the day of the shooting, police received reports that someone had pointed a gun at a school bus full of children, as well as at the RCMP detachment and at officers.

"The officers feared that the individual would return into the residential community with the rifle," the service wrote.

"In these circumstances, it was reasonable and legally justified for the officers to discharge their firearms for their own and others' protection."