SIU clears officers in Lac Seul shooting

The Special Investigations Unit recently cleared three OPP officers in the May 9 shooting death of Lac Seul’s Brian Gray.
Gray was killed after a stand off with an OPP emergency response team dispatched to the community of Whitefish Bay on the Lac Seul First Nation.
According to Ian Scott, director of SIU, the three officers were justified in using lethal force either in self-defence or to prevent the death of a hostage.
“Mr. Gray represented an imminent threat to the lives and safety of all those around him,” Scott said.
According to the SIU report released Oct. 1, events around the shooting death unfolded during the early morning hours of May 9 as follows:
Lac Seul Police Service informed the OPP of shots fired by Gray near the residence of George Carpenter, 54.
As the OPP was mobilizing, further reports came in that someone was shot, Gray was holding a gun to his own head and six people remained in the residence.
Shortly after, another report said Gray went to his own house for more ammunition and returned to Carpenter’s home where more shots were fired.
Around 6 a.m. a woman at the scene was treated with a gunshot wound to her hand.
When the OPP emergency response team arrived at 8 a.m., with the three officers in question, they were told Gray was still armed in the residence and Carpenter was dead.
More than an hour later Gray came out of the house holding another man hostage with the muzzle of a rifle against the back of the hostage’s head.
At this time, police shouted demands for Gray to drop his weapon and get down on the ground.
However, Gray did not comply with the commands. When he fired a shot into the air, his hostage dropped to the ground. Gray let out a loud scream and was then shot several times by the officers.
Still conscious, Gray was handcuffed and taken to an ambulance nearby. He was then transported to the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre where he died.
Three investigators and two forensic investigators were assigned by the SIU to probe the incident.