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Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
No charges after man, hit with police Taser, breaks leg slipping on ice
The province's police oversight agency says no charges are warranted against Winnipeg officers in a December incident in which a man fell on ice and broke his leg after police used a Taser on him. The Winnipeg Police Service notified the Independent Investigation Unit of the incident on Dec. 20 last year. City police said officers were called at about 2:40 a.m. on Dec. 19 about an intoxicated man armed with a knife trying to stab someone around the 400 block of Furby Street. Police found him brandishing the weapon and instead of dropping it as told, he walked toward them, the IIU said. An officer then used the Taser. The man was taken to hospital, where doctors found he had two broken bones in his right leg. The IIU said Friday no charges would be laid against any police, after conducting a number of interviews with witnesses and the man whose leg was broken.
CBC
2 days ago
- General
- CBC
Manitoba police investigation unit takes on case of man bitten by police dog
Manitoba's Independent Investigation Unit is looking into the case of a man seriously injured by a police dog during an arrest in Dauphin. The man was injured after 3 a.m. CT Tuesday, the police watchdog said in a news release Thursday afternoon. RCMP responded a report about a man in a mental health crisis at a hotel on Main Street S. near Riverside Road in Dauphin, a city about 240 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, the IIU said. The man had already left when officers arrived at the building, the news release said. He was found in a dense bush area, where police dog services were deployed, the IIU said. The man was bitten by the dog and taken to hospital and admitted for treatment.
CBC
5 days ago
- General
- CBC
Man fatally shot by Winnipeg police Friday identified by family
A man who was shot by Winnipeg police late last week and later died in hospital has been identified by his family. Dillon Warren Breed, 32, was identified by his mother, Doreen Henderson, to CBC News as the man who was fatally shot Friday evening. His family in Ontario is now making arrangements to travel to the Manitoba capital. "Dillon was loved by many and his passing has left a void in the hearts of all who knew him," said part of the description of a fundraiser for Breed's family. Police watchdog investigating Winnipeg police said in a statement Saturday they were called to the back lane in the 200 block of Ferry Road because of a man behaving suspiciously and "possibly attempting to break into residences." Police said the man was "covered in blood." Officers found the man "armed with a screwdriver" behind a home at 6:16 p.m. Friday, police said. "A use of force encounter occurred and unfortunately resulted in our members shooting the individual," said Winnipeg police Chief Gene Bowers, who called a weekend news conference Saturday to speak about the incident. Bowers also said the officers, who he met with on Friday night, will be "out of the workplace" in line with the department's critical incident protocol. Manitoba's police watchdog, the Independent Investigation Unit has taken over the investigation. The IIU — which investigates all serious matters involving police in the province — is asking anyone who may have information or video footage of the incident that may help investigators to call 1-844-667-6060.
CBC
20-05-2025
- CBC
Fatal police shooting at Winnipeg apartment complex justified: Watchdog
Manitoba's police watchdog won't pursue charges against a Winnipeg police officer who fatally shot an armed man at an apartment building on Main Street. The Independent Investigation Unit said Tuesday it won't authorize charges against the patrol officer in connection with the shooting at a Manitoba Housing building on Main Street last year. Police shot the man after responding to multiple 911 calls about a man swinging around a knife and banging on suite doors at North Point Douglas Manor around 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 2. He was taken to hospital and later died. The IIU's civilian director said there was no reasonable ground for charges against responding officers, and the use of lethal force was justified. The officer who shot the man (called the subject officer in the IIU report), four other officers and four civilian witnesses provided information to the civilian director, the IIU's full report on the death says. One civilian witness told the IIU the man had been continuously running water on his suite, causing flooding on other floors. The witness went to the man's suite and found him yelling and screaming on his bed. The man told two other civilian witnesses that people kept fighting him and that "everyone was out to get him," the report said. A witness said the man told them he wanted police to take him away, and he wanted to die. One of the witnesses asked the man whether he was suicidal and if he would like mental health assistance, but he declined. Man Tasered twice Eventually 911 was called and dispatchers were told the man was armed with two 20-centimetre knives and was heard saying he used meth and crack. Three officers who attended the scene — including the officer who shot the man — said they agreed to take the elevator to the fifth floor and then walk up the stairs to the seventh, where the man with the knives was. An officer with a Taser said the officer who shot the man instructed him to be non-lethal cover while he provided lethal cover. The officer with the Taser said he saw the man holding a knife and grazing or knocking on a suite door when they got to the seventh floor. The officer said he told the man to drop the weapon, but the man ignored him. He was moving toward police when the officer deployed the Taser twice. The officer who fired his gun said in a statement that the man was swinging his knives. The other witness officer said the man was moving toward them in a threatening manner. The officers said the man was not incapacitated after getting Tasered, and that he continued to move forward. It was then that the officer armed with a gun fired. The subject officer said the man was about six feet away from him when he shot him. Forensic investigators found two knives and four spent bullet casings on the scene, as well as evidence of Taser deployment, the IIU report said. A civilian witness said video corroborated the officers' accounts of the incident. On the video, the man held two knives while moving toward the police in an "aggressive manner," and he was in very close proximity when he was shot and fell to the ground, the witness said. Toxicology reports found the man had methamphetamine and amphetamine on his system. The preliminary cause of death was gunshot wounds to the chest area.
Winnipeg Free Press
15-05-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Police bullets and subsequent IIU investigation leave trail of troubling questions in wake of teen's death in Portage la Prairie
The 3 a.m. phone call jolted Kaylan Rae awake. Kaylan normally wouldn't have had his phone's ringer on, but that night, May 24, 2023, he was on call at the water treatment plant. So when the phone rang, he was expecting to hear the voice of a co-worker. Instead, there was a man who identified himself as an RCMP officer. He was asking if Conor Rae was Kaylan's son. With that confirmation, the officer said the 18-year-old had died — but that he couldn't say how. He said someone would contact them to explain and ended the call. With the force of a gas explosion, shock, panic and terror ripped through the apartment in Coquitlam, B.C., where Kaylan and his wife Tara Rae lived with their two younger children. Normally, Conor would be sleeping across the hall, but after finishing Grade 12 a semester early, he had gone to spend some time with their relatives in Portage la Prairie, where the family has deep roots. In a state of disbelief, Tara and Kaylan ran through the possibilities. A car accident seemed the most likely, but why wouldn't the officer just tell them that? They thought of a drug overdose, though that seemed unlikely knowing Conor and his friends. 'I was googling, like, how are ways that you could die when the police won't tell you?' said Tara. Kaylan (right) and Tara Rae in the family's living room in Coquitlam, B.C. (Jesse Winter / Free Press) Hoping it was some kind of sick joke or a case of mistaken identity, Tara called her son's cellphone over and over. Meanwhile, Kaylan kept calling the officer back, pressing for information, but as the calls went on, the officer's patience wore thin: ''I told you, they'll call you.'' That morning, Kaylan and Tara gathered their two children and started driving the roughly 2,200 kilometres across three provinces to Portage. They shared the driving — when one became inconsolable, the other took over. From friends and family in Portage, they'd cobbled together that Conor had been involved in an incident with police. About seven hours in, another man called them. He was from the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba: Conor had been shot by an RCMP officer. Two years later, Tara and Kaylan still cannot comprehend this reality: that their mild-mannered homebody son, who loved Pokémon GO and drawing at their kitchen table, who didn't cause them any problems or get into trouble at school, who'd never interacted with the police before, would be shot dead by a member of law enforcement. Conor Rae, then 17, poses during a trip with his family to Disney World in Florida in January 2023, several months before his death on May 24, 2023. (Supplied) They'd later learn that Conor had experienced an adverse reaction to smoking marijuana and had assaulted his girlfriend, leading two RCMP officers to the apartment they shared, where he would be fatally shot. Before Conor's death, the Raes had no issues with law enforcement. They have friends and family who are police officers. They still acknowledge it's a challenging and necessary job. But Conor's death and the investigation that followed — which saw one of the officers leave the province immediately after the shooting and not sit for an interview for six weeks — fundamentally shook their faith. And while Tara and Kaylan weren't pushing to see the officer who shot Conor go to jail, the decision by the Independent Investigation Unit (IIU) that he would not face criminal charges hit them like a ton of bricks. They felt the agency's report into Conor's death felt greenlit what had happened, putting a stamp of approval on the shooting of a 160-pound teenager during a psychiatric crisis. The lack of charges in Conor's death is not unusual. In fact, it's the norm — not just in Manitoba, but across Canada. In its 10-year history, which has involved 23 completed investigations into fatal shootings by police, the IIU — Manitoba's civilian-led police-oversight agency — has only once laid charges against an officer in such a case. As for how similar deaths can be prevented, that's a question left to court inquests, where, a prior Free Press investigation has found, judges often elect not to make any recommendations in the cases of fatal shootings by police. When compared to a raft of other wealthy countries, Canada, surprisingly, trails only the U.S. in per capita fatal shootings by police, according to a 2020 analysis by Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit organization. The rates vary within Canada. Between 2017 and 2019, for example, the Winnipeg Police Service shot nearly 12 times more people per capita than Vancouver's municipal force, a 2024 study has found. According to Free Press tracking, police in Manitoba have fatally shot 40 people over the last two decades — more than half of them since 2020. Like Conor, many were experiencing some form of mental-health crisis. Unlike Conor, who was white, roughly half were Indigenous. This story, the result of a Free Press investigation over the past three months, involved a dozen detailed interviews with people in Conor's life and experts, as well as findings from the IIU's report into his death, additional IIU and RCMP documents, and court records. While no video footage exists of Conor's encounter with the police, a motion-activated security camera inside the apartment captured some frames, which the Free Press reviewed. A request to interview the IIU's acting civilian director was rejected. The Free Press approached the RCMP last week seeking comment, but only received an official statement mere hours before publication of this story with answers to some, but not all, of the Free Press's questions. Conor William Rae was Tara and Kaylan's first child, born in 2005. He grew up surrounded by his grandparents and extended family, who lived in and around Portage la Prairie, a city of 13,000, about 85 kilometres west of Winnipeg, where a booming agricultural industry has sprung up from the fertile soil. Growing up, Conor was up for everything: swim club, triathlons, kickboxing, football, the arts — drawing comics and taking art classes as a teen — as well as nerdier pursuits like playing Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. Tara Rae displays childhood artwork by her son Conor. (Jesse Winter / Winnipeg Free Press) When Conor was 12, the Raes moved to Coquitlam, B.C., and in Grade 11, he took part in an outdoor leadership course — backcountry camping, kayaking in the Burrard Inlet, public speaking. With those extra credits, Conor was able to finish high school a semester early, and in 2023, he went back to Portage to spend time with family and friends. He also found a job there, doing food prep at a centre for adults with disabilities. Not long after he arrived, Conor received a Snapchat message from a petite 18-year-old girl with dark curly hair. Their first date lasted 13 hours. Soon, he was staying most nights in her apartment, and by mid-May, he'd moved in. Conor finished high school in Coquitlam a semester early, and he went back to Portage la Prairie to spend time with family and friends. (Supplied) In Conor, she found a goofy jokester who loved talking about his siblings and who would take her on starlit walks. She called him 'Mr. Shiny' because of his braces. His favourite thing to do was to chase her around the apartment, spin her upside down and say, 'gimme me all your lunch money!' On the evening of May 23, 2023, Conor went to a bonfire outside the house of his best friend, 'John' who requested the Free Press refer to him by a pseudonym out of privacy concerns. Through a window, John's parents saw the high school kids gathered in their backyard. Just weeks away from their Grade 12 graduation, the mood was celebratory, but it was a school night and there were no drugs or alcohol present. Around 11:30 p.m., John and Conor drove to a 7-Eleven to buy ingredients to make s'mores. When they got there, Conor decided to head home to spend time with his girlfriend, 'Elle' — also a pseudonym to protect her privacy. Conor would have walked over the tracks that cut an east-west line through Portage, where long, graffiti-covered trains pass by multiple times a day. The Third Street railway crossing in Portage la Prairie. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press) He would have walked through the city's north end — considered its rougher, poorer area — towards the dark grey, two-storey apartment complex. When he got home, Conor and his girlfriend smoked some marijuana. While Elle had smoked for years, buying her supply from the same dealer — since she was not old enough to purchase it legally — Conor had much less experience. He'd smoked once with Elle, the night before, but apart from that he had avoided it based on his negative reaction during an earlier incident when he had vomited and become paranoid. This time, Conor started coughing and throwing up almost immediately. He also began laughing and saying things like: 'Oh, it's happening, I'm Billy Loomis. I'm going to kill my girlfriend and then myself.' (Billy Loomis is a reference to the villain in the slasher film Scream, whom Elle had once joked that Conor looked like.) Elle said Conor stood up, pinned her against a wall and began choking her. His eyes seemed completely blank, like he was in some kind of 'psychotic state.' The Conor she knew — the guy 'who would cry if he hurt a fly' — was no longer there. They wound up on the floor, where Conor continued to choke her. She managed to get her foot on his chest and pry him off. Elle ran out of the apartment, wearing only an oversized white T-shirt. A neighbour took her in and they called 911. Elle was scared of involving the police because she didn't want Conor arrested, but said she was even more scared he was at risk of suicide. She wanted someone to help keep him safe. Two RCMP constables were dispatched. In the IIU's report, the officer who shot Conor is referred to as the 'subject officer,' while the second officer is called a 'witness officer.' While they were on their way to the Hazel Bay apartment complex, a dispatcher told the officers that the female victim was at a neighbour's place. The apartment block at 534 Hazel Drive in Portage la Prairie. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press) When they arrived, Conor was standing on the porch of the second-floor apartment, talking 'gibberish.' He threw a plastic garbage bin down the stairs at them. As the subject officer would later note, Conor didn't have a weapon at that point. Prompted by the thrown garbage bin, which Elle called a 'cheap, $30 trash can,' the officers ran up the stairs, with the subject officer firing his Taser. Conor ran into the apartment's living room, where he was tackled to the floor. Conor resisted and was kicking them, the officers said. The officers responded by punching and kicking Conor, with the witness officer later telling the IIU he believed they were 'losing the fight.' The subject officer tried to get Conor in a headlock. Amid the chaos, the witness officer said he saw Conor was holding a shard of glass. 'Knife!' he shouted. His partner took out his gun, yelling at Conor to drop his weapon or be shot. The witness officer discharged his Taser twice. He said when Conor moved towards him, he tried to retreat down the hallway but fell. When Conor kept moving forward, the officers told the IIU, the subject officer shot him. In its statement, the RCMP said that communication is the preferred intervention in any situation, but when police are required to intervene, it is usually in a 'complex, dynamic, and constantly evolving, often in a highly charged atmosphere.' The statement notes that Conor threw 'an object' – the garbage can – at one of the officers, striking him in the head. It highlights that the officers used verbal communication, Tasers and strikes prior to the shooting. 'During the fight, the suspect took a shard of glass in his hand and was threatening the officers with it as a knife,' the statement says. The manner in which Conor held the glass is not stated in the IIU report. While the officers are not identified by the IIU, as per policy, a civil lawsuit filed by Conor's family has recently revealed their names: Consts. Tyler Hoogkamp and Jayden Gill. The lawsuit, however, does not identify which officer shot Conor. As it turned out, the teen's death was not Hoogkamp's first encounter with the IIU. In November 2022, six months before Conor was shot, the IIU charged Hoogkamp with two counts of assault, stemming from an incident earlier that year. A highly intoxicated woman had been lodged in a holding cell in the RCMP detachment in Portage. At one point, while lying on her back, her flailing heel hit Hoogkamp's thigh. He responded by punching her in the face with a closed fist, 'leaving her lying motionless in a pool of her own blood,' the judge's decision reads. One constable said the punch landed with a 'crunch,' similar to the sound he remembered when he'd broken his nose. The woman later testified she felt like she'd been 'beaten with a bat.' The second charge stemmed from Hoogkamp later shoving the woman. During the trial, which began in late 2023, Hoogkamp referenced being part of an officer-involved shooting six months earlier. 'Kind of a stressful thing to talk about, but I was the — one of two officers, and the subject attempted to try to kill me,' he testified, saying he lost around 30 pounds from his 200-pound, 6-foot-1 frame in the months afterward. In November 2022, six months before Conor's death, the IIU charged Hoogkamp with two counts of assault, stemming from an on-duty incident earlier that year. (Court documents) A use-of-force expert retained by the Crown testified that Hoogkamp's punch was 'grossly, grossly disproportionate.' (An expert for the defence found the hit proportional.) Hoogkamp, who said it was necessary to stop the woman's 'assaultive behaviour,' was acquitted of the charges last spring. In his decision, Judge Patrick Sullivan cautioned that his verdict should not be interpreted as an approval of the force used. After Conor was killed, word got around Portage that he and Elle had been smoking weed. But not everyone accepted that simple truth. Some accused Elle of having given Conor 'laced weed.' She said she knew it was strong, but it wasn't contaminated. Meanwhile, John and his dad kept hearing things like 'pot doesn't do that.' An autopsy later confirmed that marijuana was the only drug in Conor's system when he died. Dr. Daniel Myran, a Canada Research Chair with the department of family medicine at the University of Ottawa, whose research includes a focus on the health impacts of Canada's legalization of cannabis in 2018, is familiar with the notion that marijuana is relatively harmless. 'There's an irony that society's perception of the risk of cannabis has come to an all-time low at the exact moment that the risk of cannabis is at an all-time high,' said the family physician, who was speaking generally and not on Conor's case. 'There is very clear evidence — and no debate — that people can develop temporary episodes of psychosis from using cannabis, called cannabis-induced psychosis,' which, he said, triggers a 'full detachment from reality, where they are either intensely paranoid or they're having delusions — and they've lost the insight that what is going on is not real.' The cannabis available today is five to six times stronger than it was 20 years ago, Myran added, which increases the risk of cannabis-induced psychosis. Between 2014 and 2021 in Ontario, the annual rate of emergency-room visits for cannabis-induced psychosis increased by 220 per cent, according to a study Myran co-authored. While it is impossible to know for certain whether Conor was experiencing this form of psychosis, given that no official diagnosis was made, he clearly experienced a sudden break from reality. And, according to a recent study, this likely put him at heightened risk when he encountered the police. In her 2023 doctoral thesis, Robin Whitehead, an assistant professor of law at Lakehead University, found that 20 per cent of people shot by Canadian police between 2004 and 2014 were experiencing psychosis. Whitehead said people in this state may not react to police techniques the way somebody else would. For instance, she said, does a person in psychosis really believe the police are who they say they are? Do they pick up weapons of opportunity simply because they're scared? 'What I suspect is taking place — but to be fair, I don't have definitive proof — is that these are individuals who are maybe more likely not to follow clear police commands,' she said. 'They may not, in some cases, understand that they can die.' Sitting on her neighbours' couch, Elle was in shock. An officer came by to ask her Conor's height and weight. When she tried to ask what was happening, the officers brushed off her questions. No paramedics came to check her out. With her phone still in the apartment, officers did not offer her a way to contact anyone. Neither Elle, nor her two neighbours, had realized the bangs they'd heard were gunshots. When she told an officer she was leaving, he said she couldn't go until she gave a statement. 'He took me to the back of his cop car on the street, just me and him,' Elle said. 'I asked him before he started the recording, like, 'Is Conor OK? Is he in custody?' And that's when he went, 'Conor has sadly passed on scene.'' She answered the officer's questions in the predawn darkness, sitting in his car with the door open and him standing over her — a position she later said felt unprofessional and intimidating. She was alone and had been awake all night, still only wearing the oversized T-shirt she'd run outside in. Responding to questions about Elle's treatment that night, the RCMP said in a statement that its officers were responsible for investigating all aspects of the original call for assistance to determine if charges could be laid, adding, 'regardless of the outcome of the initial call, officers must conduct a thorough investigation before closing the file.' The service said while its members are committed to ensuring survivors of domestic violence are treated with the utmost 'respect and compassion,' officers must also gather information as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, John and his family had also been awake for much of the night. After the RCMP officer notified Tara and Kaylan that Conor had died, she had called John, asking if he knew what had happened. He didn't. Seized with guilt over not driving Conor home, John assumed he'd been jumped. Sometime before 7 a.m., John's dad went to Conor and Elle's place, where police tape stretched beside the building. John's dad, who had known Conor since he was a child and considered him part of their family, also thought he'd been attacked. An officer guarding the scene told him to go down to the RCMP station to give a statement, which he did. A few hours later, John was interviewed at home by two IIU investigators, who had arrived on the scene. They asked whether the teens had been using any drugs the night before. John said they had not. Afterward, an unexpected call came. An RCMP officer was asking John's dad to bring him to the station for their own interview. John's dad pushed back. 'I completely broke down on the phone because they were like, 'It's really important that we get to talk to him right away.' And I was like, 'He's asleep and he just lost his best friend. I'm not waking him,'' he said. But the caller was adamant. When John and his mom arrived at the station later that day, RCMP officers asked to interview the then 17-year-old alone. His mom declined. In the interview, John was again asked if the teens had used drugs. When he said no, the officers asked, 'Are you sure?' 'Looking back with clear eyes, the only logical reason they would be asking any questions of us is to help their members. That is the only reason,' John's dad said in an interview alongside his now 19-year-old son. 'What really bothered me is how much pressure they put on my son — who wasn't there — to come in and answer questions, and the only witness left the province,' he said, referring to the officer who left Manitoba after the shooting, without doing an interview. 'I was held to a higher standard than a police officer while I was underage,' said John. His dad cut in, adding: 'And we're not asking any police officer to be held to any higher standard, just the same standard … (My son) showed a lot of strength and composure and tried his best to co-operate in every way, which is more than can be said for the police in this. I try not to be a bitter person, but I'm having trouble with that.' That same afternoon, IIU investigators also interviewed Elle. Until the IIU contacted her, Elle and her family had been under the impression that Conor had died by suicide. In a subsequent interview some months later, the investigators showed her a photo of the object the officers had said Conor had been holding. She told them it was a broken piece of a glass dish that held keys and knickknacks. The dish is visible in a photo taken by Elle's motion-activated camera at 1:16 a.m. In the photo, the blurry foreground shows a flurry of action, which appears to be an officer tackling Conor. In the background, the dish is sitting, untouched, on a side table next to the living room couch. The next photo is time-stamped 1:19 a.m. In it, about half of the camera's view is obscured by a lampshade. Still visible, though, is the couch — now broken in half — and a wall splattered with blood. At some point in the three minutes between photos, Conor was shot. 'It was clear that somebody was standing there, and they went, 'Oh shit, there's a camera,' and they covered it. And then when I went in, it was completely unplugged,' Elle said. Elle had a motion-activated security camera positioned on her fireplace mantle, to the left of the front door, which recorded a view of her living room. A photo on the camera, timestamped at 1:19 a.m., was taken after Conor was killed. His blood can be seen on the wall behind what appears to be a red broom. Forensic technicians recovered five bullet casings and three spent or expended bullets from the apartment, according to an IIU document that lists items seized from Elle's apartment. Elle, who entered the apartment the following day, recalls the locations where two of the bullets made impact. The first, she said, hit a coffee cart in her dining room, to the left of the kitchen, while the second went through the kitchen and hit the dishwasher. John's dad, who entered the apartment separately, identified those same two locations. He also identified a third trajectory, but couldn't recall if it was to the right or left of the kitchen. He said the holes left behind in the drywall — where, he presumed, a forensic team had cut out the bullets — were about 12 to 18 inches above the floor. To him, it seemed the shots were fired on a downward angle. Elle's mom, who also identified similar locations, said the bullets hit the walls below 'knee level.' Those who saw the apartment after the shooting, namely Elle, her mom and John's dad, said it only amplified their concerns about the officers' actions. They suspected the officers had chased Conor towards the hallway where the couple's bedroom was and felt he had been running away. That the shots hit several different areas of the apartment suggested to them an officer behaving erratically. And, they asked, if Conor was hell bent on hurting the officers, why did he pick up a broken dish rather than a nearby kitchen knife? 'I saw levels of bad decision-making throughout and I realized that it was done very quickly,' said John's dad. 'I'm an armchair quarterback. I wasn't there. But it just seems like everything, every stage of that, was wrong.' And, he added, 'even the quote/unquote weapon, I've got a hard time with that. That it wasn't just lying around and it somehow wound up in his hand.' John's dad obtained a floor plan of the couple's Goodale Gardens apartment online. He noted while it wasn't a perfect reflection of their suite – he had to flip the image, for instance, and the fireplace orientation is not exact – it gives a good idea of the layout. The lines numbered 1 and 3 represent areas where he felt certain of his memory that bullets had hit the walls. For line No. 1, a square piece of drywall had been removed – presumably to recover a bullet – about 12" from floor height, he wrote in an email. For line No. 3, he said a bullet passed through the kitchen wall and left an 'unmistakable bullet (side profile) shaped dent in the door of the dishwasher.' As for lines No. 2a and 2b, he said he was 'not as confident' with these trajectories, namely, whether there had been just one area or two where drywall had been removed. The red area is where he believes Conor died, based on the large amount of blood. After the shooting, IIU interviews with police officers proceeded slowly. Even two RCMP members who'd responded to the scene afterward were not interviewed for several weeks. Of the two officers present when Conor was shot, the subject officer was being investigated for a potential criminal offence. He exercised his right to silence and refused to participate in an IIU interview, though he eventually provided his notes from that night, as well as a prepared written statement. (Conor's parents said it was provided about two months later.) Immediately after the shooting, the second officer went on sick leave and left Manitoba, the IIU told Tara and Kaylan at the time. After a few weeks, Tara and Kaylan started raising questions with Ron Muir, the senior IIU investigator on the case. 'We would ask Ron, like, 'Why? Why is he allowed to go?' And he's like, 'Well, he's not really,'' Kaylan said. They said the IIU was prepping to fly to the officer when he finally returned and sat for an interview. That took place on July 4, nearly six weeks after Conor was shot. Regulations under Manitoba's Police Services Act say witness officers must be interviewed at a time and location requested by the IIU, unless the agency agrees to a police chief's request to postpone. It is unknown whether the IIU agreed to the delay in this case. When Elle, along with her mom, cousin and an aunt, returned to the apartment, the scene was being guarded by two RCMP officers. 'We asked them, like, 'Is it really bad up there?' And that's when they went, 'it's not as bad as we thought it would be.' And then when I went up, yeah, it was really bad,' Elle said. 'And then when I went up, yeah, it was really bad,' Elle said. She said upon seeing the scene her aunt nearly threw up and her cousin broke down. 'It was just like a joke to all of them, and I do believe it was because of the side of town we were on,' she said of the police officers' response. Elle's family was told to repair the holes left in the drywall by the forensic team at their own cost. She was initially denied access to victim services and her mom had to scrub the blood from the apartment walls. Eventually, after her stepfather intervened with the city's mayor, the cost of repairs was covered and Elle received counselling support. For weeks, Elle was barely functional, her mom remembers. And for a year, her daughter rarely left her room, not speaking to anyone. Elle also had to contend with some people treating her as if she'd killed Conor. 'Everyone in this town knew Conor and they knew he was an amazing guy, so when it came out, that's why it got turned on me … (people were saying) 'that would never happen. He would never do that.' I've been saying that, too,' said Elle, who is now 20 years old and has since moved away from Portage. 'He was an extraordinary person.' On an overcast day this March, Tara and Kaylan are sitting in the living room of their Coquitlam apartment. Their daughter, who is now 13 years old, is perched on a nearby armchair, and later sits on the couch in between her parents, wrapped in her mom's arms. Their lanky 16-year-old son mostly stays in his bedroom. The room used to be Conor's, and across an entire wall stretched a mural that Conor scratched out in pencil during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The apartment's walls are filled with Conor's artwork — framed sketches and paintings. On a table sits a collection of photos of Conor, along with a candle that is lit every day. And near the kitchen are the quintessential marks of a family home: the three kids' heights pencilled on a wall. Conor's last measurement is dated December 2022. In the time since, Conor's younger brother has grown taller than he was. Photos of Conor Rae sit on a shelf in his family's home in Coquitlam. (Jesse Winter / Free Press) A month earlier, in February, Muir, the senior IIU investigator, along with the agency's acting civilian director, Bruce Sychuk, had come to Coquitlam to deliver the results of the investigation. Muir oversaw the case from beginning to end and Conor's parents felt he was the only person they'd encountered in the system who truly cared about their son's death. Sychuk, meanwhile, had been on the job for roughly three months, taking on the role after the previous director, Roxanne Gagné, left less than a year-and-a-half into her five-year term. From what Tara and Kaylan gathered, the decision-making in Conor's case was delayed by several months due to Gagné's exit. The IIU's report into Conor's death is dated Jan. 10, 2025, though it was not released publicly until March 24 — 670 days after Conor was killed. Of all the IIU's completed investigations into fatal shootings, Conor's took the longest, according to Free Press tracking. And at nine pages, it is also one of the agency's shortest reports involving a fatal shooting. For the Raes, the report was not worth the wait. 'It was so, so heartbreaking and overwhelming and depressing,' Tara said. 'I still had a little bit of hope that something good would come out of the investigation … and when there wasn't, when it was just like, 'oh, that's it,' it was so devastating.' The conclusion section of the IIU report. Read the full nine-page report (PDF, 300 KB). Several pieces of key information are missing from the report. Perhaps most surprisingly, it does not include the results of Conor's autopsy, though it does confirm the IIU received his autopsy report. The autopsy would have catalogued Conor's official cause of death, as well as how many bullets hit him (and where), any potential evidence of the Taser discharges and any injuries he may have received from the officers kicking and punching him. And while the IIU told Conor's parents the result of a toxicology analysis — that marijuana was the only drug found in his system — the report also omits this detail. The IIU report references the autopsy report, but its results were not included. In reviewing all the IIU's final reports into fatal shootings, the Free Press found that a victim's autopsy results have never been excluded before, including from all other reports written by Sychuk. In such cases, the IIU also rarely excluded toxicology results. Another notable absence involves the piece of glass officers said Conor was holding. The report doesn't include any specific information about it, such as its size, shape or origin. In fact, the IIU report doesn't mention the glass at all, except when relaying the two officers' statements. The IIU did not include a photo of the shard, such as the one shown to Elle, though it has included photos of weapons in some past reports. In previous reports, the IIU has included detailed descriptions of weapons recovered by forensic units, such as a hatchet with a head that was 5.5 inches long and had 'Made in Sweden' stamped on one side; a 70-centimetre machete with a 'homemade grip consisting of wood, shoe lace type red rope and red tape'; and a silver, model SBB400 baseball bat 2.25 inches in diameter that was 'dented, scraped, misshapen, discolored and had screw indentations on its side.' The IIU, which describes itself as an 'independent investigatory agency within Manitoba Justice,' does not have its own spokesperson and its media requests are handled by the province. The Free Press's detailed request for an interview with the IIU's acting civilian director, which included specific questions raised by this investigation, was rejected by a communications manager for the province within minutes, who said the IIU's reports 'speak for themselves.' Howard Morton, a Toronto defence lawyer who served as the director of Ontario's Special Investigations Unit in the mid-1990s, called it 'ludicrous' for the IIU to issue a blanket denial to speak to the media when a case is over. 'Why shouldn't a public servant — doing a very important job — why shouldn't they talk to the media?' he asked. After reviewing the IIU's report, Kate Puddister, an associate professor of political science at the University of Guelph whose research includes a focus on police oversight, said it was very 'scant' and 'slim on detail,' pointing out that it was largely based on witness interviews, as well as the subject officer's notes and written statement. 'It doesn't provide a lot of transparency into the investigation,' Puddister said. 'I could see how family members and communities receiving this report would not be satisfied by the level of detail.' Puddister said she would have wanted to see more explanation around the civilian director's conclusion that the incident did not rise to the level of criminal conduct. While several sections of the Criminal Code pertaining to how police can use force in their duties are copied and pasted into the report, no additional commentary is provided. Referring to the lengthy delay in the witness officer's interview, Puddister said it raises a lot of questions, if, of the three people present, 'one of them is deceased, one of them is being investigated for criminal conduct, and one of them is not being interviewed.' She said the delay would have created a 'big roadblock' to completing the investigation in a timely fashion. Speaking generally, Puddister said her research has identified a number of specific challenges that arise in investigating police conduct. The first, she said, is that police are 'criminal justice insiders,' meaning they understand the system and their legal rights in a way most people don't. Officers also enjoy heightened credibility within the justice system and tend to have multiple layers of support, including access to experienced lawyers from the beginning of the process, she noted. And finally, Puddister said, much police work happens outside of the public eye, and the so-called 'blue wall of silence' may mean officers are not willing to speak up if they encounter wrongdoing by their colleagues. Zane Tessler, the IIU's first civilian director, who led the agency from 2013 until June 2023, said that if the agency had Conor's autopsy report, he'd find it 'surprising' for the findings not to be referenced. He also said he would have described the piece of glass if information about it had been available. (While Tessler received the initial alert into Conor's death and would have initiated the investigation, he retired several weeks later and has no knowledge of the specifics of the case.) As for the delay in the second officer's interview, Tessler said if a witness was dealing with a mental or physical issue — backed up by a doctor's diagnosis — the IIU would agree to wait. 'You're not going to get much information out of that particular witness by forcing them to come in,' he said. To Morton, the former director of Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, the IIU's omission of Conor's autopsy and toxicology results stood out. He called it 'craziness.' 'That's standard information you would always put in … that's really critical,' he said. 'What possible motivation could there be for (leaving it out)? If members of the family or their community look at that, then right away they think there's something fishy.' Tara and Kaylan feel they should have been provided with all the evidence behind the IIU's decision, including the autopsy and toxicology reports, 911 call logs and the experts' use-of-force, blood splatter and bullet trajectory reports. They believe the IIU document represents a compilation of the two officers' opinions — and little else. And they are still stunned the IIU had no power to stop the witness officer from leaving the province, and that the subject officer didn't need to sit for an interview at all. 'The IIU is a joke. They have no power. Why do they even exist?' Kaylan asked. As Conor's parents grappled with the IIU's lack of authority, a bill meant to address that issue had been sitting idle in Manitoba's legislature for more than three years. Introduced in late 2021 by the Progressive Conservative government, the Police Services Amendment Act has since gone through every step to become law — except for receiving a proclamation date when it would come into effect. Justice Minister Matt Wiebe has dodged the question of when that will happen. When asked for an update in late March, a press secretary provided a single-sentence answer: 'Our government remains committed to doing this important work.' The Police Services Amendment Act has since gone through every step to become law — except for receiving a proclamation date when it would come into effect. The legislation came out of a 2020 review of Manitoba's Police Services Act, which had been commissioned by the provincial government. The review, by the non-profit Community Safety Knowledge Alliance, noted the IIU has no statutory authority to require — or enforce — officers' compliance. (Read the report, 3.5MB PDF) They recommended it be legislated that officers must obey 'reasonable' requests of the IIU and that sanctions, including fines and jail time, be created for those who do not. A subsequent report, commissioned by Winnipeg's Police Accountability Coalition, took this a step further. It recommended the IIU's mandate be expanded: beyond making determinations on criminal wrongdoing, they argued the agency should be able to provide direction on police policies. This report, which was authored by the Public Interest Law Centre, a division of Legal Aid Manitoba, also said fines of $5,000 or $10,000 are not expected to be an effective deterrent and may be treated as 'the cost of doing business.' (Read the report, 1.7 MB PDF) While police services tend to think their use-of-force standards are acceptable, 'I'm not sure the public necessarily shares that view," says Kent Roach, a professor at the University of Toronto faculty of law. (Marta Iwanek / Free Press files) A more effective sanction for officers who refuse to co-operate, they argued, would be immediate suspension without pay. Kent Roach, a professor at the University of Toronto faculty of law who has long researched questions of police accountability, said that while police services tend to think their use-of-force standards are acceptable, 'I'm not sure the public necessarily shares that view.' 'We also know that certain types of events happen again and again and again,' said Roach, who was speaking generally and not about Conor's case. The most obvious example, he said, is when someone in mental distress won't drop a knife and the police shoot them. Police services have reason to explore change, he added, noting that while the harm in officers using lethal force is obviously greatest to the victim and their family, the damage to the officers themselves is 'not trivial.' RCMP officers are taught the Incident Management Intervention Model, which authorizes the use of lethal force if officers believe they or others are at risk of 'grievous bodily harm or death.' RCMP officers are taught the Incident Management Intervention Model, which authorizes the use of lethal force if officers believe they or others are at risk of 'grievous bodily harm or death.' In 2009, the RCMP removed two principles underpinning the model: first, that 'the best strategy for police officers was to use the least amount of intervention possible' and second, that 'the best intervention caused the least amount of harm,' according to 2015 testimony by an RCMP use-of-force expert. In 2023, the RCMP told the Free Press these principles were not 'a realistic threshold' and that police need to use the 'right' amount of force from the outset — not necessarily the least — to avoid unnecessary escalation. In April, Kaylan filed a lawsuit against the two officers involved in Conor's death, and the Attorney General of Canada, which represents the RCMP. The statement of claim says the officers' actions were 'callous' and showed a 'flagrant disregard' of Conor's safety. The claims have not been proven in court and the RCMP has yet to file its statement of defence. Tara and Kaylan didn't want to get involved in a lengthy legal proceeding, but they feel it's the only way to get information, as well as any measure of accountability. Though their hopes are not high, they want to see the RCMP forced to make changes, including removing the two officers from their posts. Though their lawyer's fees are financially out of reach for the Raes, their counsel has agreed to work on a contingency basis. 'There's no winning in this. Even if you win a lawsuit, it's not a win,' Tara said. 'But what choices do we have?' Kaylan also pointed out that while the RCMP have spent millions paying out legal settlements, they've been slow to introduce body cameras, which is a step the Raes are eager to see fully implemented. Last fall, the RCMP began gradually equipping Mounties across the country with cameras, including officers in Portage. As for changes in how the RCMP responds to people in mental health crises, Tara has a unique window into what that might look like. As a psychiatric nurse, she's often dealt with patients in states of psychosis, yet none of her colleagues — nor their security guards — carry guns. 'They're not even themselves. They are scared and they're paranoid, and sometimes they act super aggressive. Lots of times, though, they just want you to leave them alone. But either way, they're terrified and they don't know what's happening,' she said. The No. 1 guidance given to nurses like herself, she pointed out, is to not put yourself in an enclosed space with an agitated person where there's no room to exit or step back. And second, she said, is not to react with aggression. 'If a nurse gets punched or kicked or something, that's just part of our job … if I got hit, it's like, 'Tara, what could you have done better?'' she said. 'If a police officer (gets hit), they can now shoot you and that's OK.' Elle's mom, who worked at the Manitoba Developmental Centre, a now-shuttered facility for adults with intellectual disabilities in Portage, echoed Tara's experience. 'I worked with people with disabilities for 24 years. There were six foot tall, 300-pound grown men coming at me, but I didn't get any weapons,' Elle's mom said, pointing out that she and her colleagues were expected to safely de-escalate these situations using words. In Conor's state of mind, 'for all we know, you're a demon to him,' Elle's mom added. 'You can't use the rationale that he would listen to a police officer, if he doesn't know you're a police officer. You don't know what he's seeing or hearing. 'You de-escalate the situation by standing outside and letting him get his rage out, because nobody was in danger — except for himself.' In the two years since Conor's death, the lives of his family and friends have been fractured in more ways than they could have imagined. His death has shattered their beliefs, their sense of safety and their understanding of how the world works. Some family members have taken an anti-police, anti-authority turn. His parents panic when their younger son is out and doesn't text them when he said he would. Conor's best friend, John, says he'd hesitate to call the police in the future. After meeting in Grade 1, Conor and John were inseparable. Even when Conor's family moved to Coquitlam, they stayed in touch, playing video games for long hours and talking on the phone. And there were the visits, with Conor practically living at their house some summers. 'It was everything I could have ever hoped for my children,' John's dad said. 'Conor was the kid that you were so relieved your son brought home as a best friend.' John hasn't read the IIU's report, saying nothing — no report — will bring him closure. 'I'm never going to see my friend again,' he said. 'I can know every single thing that happened. I can know that he was unlawfully killed or lawfully killed and it's not going to make me sleep better.' 'There's something missing,' John said, trying to ignore the emotion rising in his voice and the tears forming. 'He created a standard in my life about what someone needs to be, to be a friend. And it's a high standard, so it's kind of hard to…' His voice grows tighter and trails off. For John and his dad, one of the most painful things is how Conor's death has come to eclipse the 18 years of his life that came before. John's dad said they had wanted to create a graduation bursary at their local high school in honour of Conor's artistic talents, but they worried no one would touch it because of how he died. Conor Rae's parents Tara (left) and Kaylan pose for a portrait holding a painting by their son in the family's living room in Coquitlam, B.C. (Jesse Winter / Winnipeg Free Press) And for Conor's family, dealing with the emotions that come up remains a challenge. 'You think you're doing OK and then all of a sudden I'm lying in bed for three hours crying because I can't pull it together,' Tara said. After Conor's death, Tara started having regular panic attacks, which had never happened to her before, though she said they've eased with time. In the immediate aftermath, Tara told her employer she needed a few weeks off and then would return. 'I just desperately wanted to get back to my normal life. Realizing that we don't get to go back to normal life. That's not our lives anymore,' she said. She misses that normal life: like the times when she and her son would get Slurpees and sour candy from a convenience store and drive around town — talking and listening to songs they'd sent each other on Spotify. Conor Rae's mother Tara lights a candle and places it next to photos and a painting of her son. (Jesse Winter / Free Press) Weeks away from his high school graduation, Conor had been thinking of going into tattooing as a career — he himself had a chest tattoo inspired by his favourite manga series, Berserk — or enrolling in graphic-design school. He'd also considered becoming an electrician, like one of his uncles. He wanted to have kids of his own one day. But it's impossible to know what the future would have really held. And that's part of their grief. 'You don't know all the ways you're going to grieve the loss of somebody until you have to,' Tara said. 'I don't just grieve Conor — I grieve losing my baby. I grieve the young man he was becoming and all the things we won't get to experience with him.' Perhaps hardest of all is seeing how Conor's death has hurt his siblings, who have to go through life without their older brother. And while therapy has helped them all, she said, it's no resolution. On a misty day in March, with rain threatening to come, as it so often does in the coastal community of Coquitlam, Tara and Kaylan walk along a favourite trail near their home. They've come here since their kids were little. Conor and his younger siblings would climb on split logs, over boulders and stumps. They'd put rocks in the holes of trees, making them out to have eyes. The forest was alive. It was their playground. Conor Rae's parents Tara (left) and Kaylan walk on one of the family's favourite hiking trails in Coquitlam. (Jesse Winter / Free Press) One tree in particular stuck out. Tilted sideways, it had a particular prominence in the forest. The other trees seemed to steer away from it, leaving it in its own sunny spotlight. It's covered in foliage of glow-stick luminescence, lighting up the forest with neon greenery. Tara recalls walking once with her son and turning back to see him staring at it. It's this place where, under the towering canopy of red cedars and Douglas firs, Tara still comes nearly every day with the family's dog. And it's where, on the quiet paths, with soft mosses and ferns absorbing the sound of the nearby homes and roads, Tara still speaks to her son. Marsha McLeodInvestigative reporter Marsha is an investigative reporter. She joined the Free Press in 2023. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
