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ASIRT Investigation reveals a series of life-threatening incidents police officers overcame to arrest suspects

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From the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT)

RCMP officers acted reasonably in shootings

On Oct. 13, 2017, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) was directed to investigate the circumstances surrounding two officer-involved shootings that occurred the same day during a continuing event.

The first officer-involved shooting resulted in a minor gunshot wound to a 20-year-old woman. The second officer-involved shooting resulted in serious injuries to a 20-year-old man. Evidence obtained during the investigation included statements from civilian witnesses, EMS personnel, all involved officers and the occupants of the stolen vehicles, as well as radio communications and multiple available video recordings of portions of the events.

On Oct. 13, 2017 at 9:14 a.m., a man called RCMP to report that he had just been involved in a dispute with another man driving a light-coloured Chevrolet truck and when he attempted to confront the driver, the man threatened him with a large knife. There was a female passenger in the truck. When police ran the licence plate provided and contacted the registered owner, it was determined that the truck had been stolen from the Didsbury area earlier that morning.

At 1:30 p.m., the first man and woman picked up a second man in Innisfail who had just been released on bail, having been arrested for possession of a stolen vehicle the day before. They did so in the stolen vehicle seen earlier in the day in Sundre.

At approximately 3:15 p.m., the son of the stolen truck’s owner called RCMP to report that he had spotted the stolen truck in Sundre and was following it. In response, the driver of the stolen truck rammed the son’s car and attempted to run him over when he exited his vehicle. The man threw himself out of the way, but he was struck and sustained minor injury to his leg. The female passenger waved a large knife and threatened to kill the son.

A short time later, officers came across the truck, and unsuccessfully tried to conduct a traffic stop. As officers pulled alongside, the driver could be seen wearing sunglasses and a bandana covering his nose and mouth. The officers terminated the pursuit as both trucks headed west of Sundre but shortly thereafter, they saw the stolen truck driving on a rural road. The driver taunted police as he passed them. Due to concerns for public safety, police did not initiate a pursuit.

The same officers encountered the stolen truck being driven in Caroline but, again, no pursuit was initiated. Shortly thereafter, the officers followed as the truck was driven into a field. The driver turned around and drove back in the direction of the officers who exited their vehicle and drew their service pistols. The truck drove a wide arc around them, so neither officer fired.

At approximately 3:45 p.m., other officers saw the stolen truck travel north on Hwy 22, just west of Caroline, and followed. Police unsuccessfully tried to set up spike belts at two locations but the stolen vehicle avoided them, in one case driving directly at an officer, who had to take evasive action to avoid being struck.

A pursuit was declared shortly after. While followed by two separate police vehicles with emergency lights activated, speeds reached 170-180 km/hr. As the pursuit headed eastbound on TWP Road 400, the woman in the back seat of the stolen truck threw a child’s car seat and other items onto the roadway, creating hazards and attempting to deter the police from continuing their pursuit. The first man was driving and the second man was in the front passenger seat.

As the stolen truck was pursued eastbound onto TWP Road 394, it approached a driveway where an officer had parked his police vehicle and extended a spike belt across both lanes, holding the line in the north ditch. The first man drove the stolen truck left of centre and turned into the north ditch, driving towards the officer. He suddenly pulled back onto the road and the officer ran back beside his police vehicle and drew his pistol. The stolen truck entered the south ditch, drove over the driveway approach past the officer and police vehicle, avoiding the spike belt and returned back to the road, moving eastbound.

Instead of continuing eastbound, the truck swung around to face back towards the officer, his police vehicle and two other officers who had arrived and placed their police vehicles to partially block off any westbound escape. The truck headed directly towards the officer who had earlier placed the spike belt as he stood by his police vehicle. The officer believed that the driver was purposely trying to “run” him over as there was no reason to proceed westbound and engage with police when the eastbound road was unobstructed. At approximately 4:27 p.m., as the truck drove towards the officer, fishtailing and colliding with the police vehicle and coming within feet of the officer, the officer and one other fired their service pistols. A bullet grazed the top of the back of the woman’s head causing a relatively minor laceration.

The truck drove over the spike belt, which destroyed the passenger side tires, leading the truck to flee on its rims at approximately 60-70 km/hr. As an officer tried to set up another spike belt, the truck drove at the officer, who had to retreat to the ditch. At 4:31 p.m., as the truck approached the Hwy 20 intersection, an officer was authorized to force the truck off the road. The officer rammed the side of the truck, forcing it into the north ditch with the police vehicle on one side and a fence on the other. The two men climbed through the passenger window and fled to a nearby field, leaving the injured woman in the back seat.

When the two men came upon a farmhouse, they observed a woman run inside. They approached and kicked in the door to the home where two women were present with children. When they found out the women had no keys to the vehicles on the property, the men took their cellphones so they could not call for assistance, and fled to a second rural residence. They broke into vehicles, obtained a garage door opener to gain access to the residence and obtained keys to a black Ford F250 truck that they then attempted to flee in. The second man was now driving with the first man in the front passenger seat. As they were driving out, an officer driving towards them twice attempted to pin them in on a fence but the stolen truck suddenly reversed and rammed the police truck with enough force to set off the airbags, disabling the police vehicle.

The newly stolen truck was driven through the field and down the 500-metre driveway to access Hwy 20, approaching a point where two officers were placing a spike belt. The truck drove off the roadway into the ditch where one armed officer was. A second armed officer moved forward towards the truck on the south grass shoulder of the driveway. The vehicle suddenly accelerated, re-entered the roadway, swerved aggressively to avoid the spike belt and drove directly towards the second officer. Had he not taken evasive actions, it is beyond dispute that the officer would have been struck by the middle of the front grill of the stolen truck. Available video confirmed that the stolen truck came within what appears to be a matter of 12 to 18 inches of the officer, causing both officers to discharge their service pistols.

Unknown to the officers, the 20-year-old driver sustained two gunshot wounds that left him unable to feel or move his legs. The truck briefly came to a stop in the south ditch, just short of Hwy 20. When the passenger looked through the broken rear window and appeared to reach for something, officers shouted commands to stop. The passenger reached his leg over the center console and “floored” the accelerator, causing the officers to resuming firing.

The truck drove out of the east ditch, crossed Hwy 20 and went into the west ditch where it became immobilized in a grove of trees. Police provided medical care to the injured driver until Emergency Medical Services arrived. Ultimately, the man was airlifted to hospital by STARS air ambulance.

Of the two shots sustained, one shattered the man’s left forearm and the second shot entered his left shoulder shattering bone before becoming lodged in his spine resulting in permanent paralysis.

Having reviewed the comprehensive investigation, Susan Hughson, QC, Executive Director for ASIRT, has determined that there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the officers involved in these events committed any criminal offence(s). As such, no officer will be charged.

Under the Criminal Code, a police officer is authorized to use as much force as is reasonably necessary to perform his or her lawful duties. An officer may only respond with lethal force in circumstances where he or she reasonably believes that there is an imminent risk of death or grievous bodily harm to the officer or any other person. An officer may also use lethal force to prevent flight in limited circumstances.

At the time of this incident, the involved officers were all acting in the lawful execution of their duties. There were more than reasonable grounds to believe that some or all of the occupants of both the first and second stolen trucks had committed indictable criminal offences.

In the entire course of these events, the conduct of the three individuals could objectively demonstrate the danger and significant risk to public. Multiple videos combined with the evidence of both civilian and police witnesses demonstrated that the three occupants of both stolen trucks were reckless, motivated to do whatever was necessary to evade apprehension and, in those circumstances, extremely dangerous. Both men reported that it had not been their intention to hit anyone. However, their conduct, at a minimum, would have created a reasonable apprehension that this was their intent. One person had been threatened and struck, another had been threatened with death, and the stolen vehicles had been driven towards officers in a manner that could easily have been interpreted as an intention to run them down.

Based on the actions of these three individuals, it is only good fortune that no civilian nor police officer was seriously injured or killed. At the time of the first officer-involved shooting, the circumstances created an objectively reasonable belief that there was an imminent risk of grievous bodily harm or death and, as such, officers were entitled to use lethal force. At the time of the second officer-involved shooting, once again, the circumstances created an objectively reasonable belief that there was an imminent risk of grievous bodily harm or death and both officers were entitled to use lethal force to address that threat.

Although the injury is believed to have occurred by the time of the attempted flight with the assistance of the passenger, based on all the evidence, it was subjectively and objectively reasonable to resort to lethal force to prevent further flight. The force used was necessary for the purpose of protecting the officer or any other person from imminent or future death or grievous bodily harm. Both men had repeatedly demonstrated a willingness, over a very limited period of time, to risk causing death or grievous bodily harm to both civilians and officers to further their flight and evade apprehension, and had engaged in a protracted crime spree doing so. The risk was not hypothetical. The threat was relatively immediate. In their multiple encounters that day, they had threatened and/or endangered life. If anything, their conduct had been escalating. The rapid forward movement of the vehicle was reasonably inferred to be an attempt at continued flight and the vehicle had a clear path forward. The only means at their disposal in that moment was the use of lethal force. Given the demonstrated conduct of both men, they needed to be stopped before they seriously injured or killed someone. The fact that they had not done so to that point was the result of good luck, nothing more. It was reasonable to act in the circumstances.

ASIRT’s mandate is to effectively, independently, and objectively investigate incidents involving Alberta’s police that have resulted in serious injury or death to any person. This mandate includes incidents involving discharge of a firearm that would likely have resulted in serious injury or death had the person been struck.

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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Crime

The Left Thinks Drug Criminalization Is Racist. Minorities Disagree

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[This article was originally published in City Journal, a public policy magazine and website published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research]

By Adam Zivo

A Canadian poll finds that racial minorities don’t believe drug enforcement is bigoted.

Is drug prohibition racist? Many left-wing institutions seem to think so. But their argument is historically illiterate—and it contradicts recent polling data, too, which show that minorities overwhelmingly reject that view.

Policies and laws are tools to establish order. Like any tool, they can be abused. The first drug laws in North America, dating back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, arguably fixated on opium as a legal pretext to harass Asian immigrants, for example. But no reasonable person would argue that laws against home invasion, murder, or theft are “racist” because they have been misapplied in past cases. Absent supporting evidence, leaping from “this tool is sometimes used in racist ways” to “this tool is essentially racist” is kindergarten-level reasoning.

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Yet this is precisely what institutions and activist groups throughout the Western world have done. The Drug Policy Alliance, a U.S.-based organization, suggests that drug prohibition is rooted in “racism and fear.” Harm Reduction International, a British NGO, argues for legalization on the grounds that drug prohibition entrenches “racialized hierarchies, which were established under colonial control and continue to dominate today.” In Canada, where I live, the top public health official in British Columbia, our most drug-permissive province, released a pro-legalization report last summer claiming that prohibition is “based on a history of racism, white supremacy, paternalism, colonialism, classism and human rights violations.”

These claims ignore how drug prohibition has been and remains popular in many non-European societies. Sharia law has banned the use of mind-altering substances since the seventh century. When Indigenous leaders negotiated treaties with Canadian colonists in the late 1800s, they asked for  “the exclusion of fire water (whiskey)” from their communities. That same century, China’s Qing Empire banned opium amid a national addiction crisis. “Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality,” the Daoguang emperor wrote in an 1810 edict.

Today, Asian and Muslim jurisdictions impose much stiffer penalties on drug offenders than do Western nations. In countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Singapore, and Thailand, addicts and traffickers are given lengthy prison sentences or executed. Meantime, in Canada and the United States, de facto decriminalization has left urban cores littered with syringes and shrouded in clouds of meth.

The anti-drug backlash building in North America appears to be spearheaded by racial minorities. When Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s former district attorney, was recalled in 2022, support for his ouster was highest among Asian voters. Last fall, 73 percent of Latinos backed California’s Proposition 36, which heightened penalties for drug crimes, while only 58 percent of white respondents did.

In Canada, the first signs of a parallel trend emerged during Vancouver’s 2022 municipal election, where an apparent surge in Chinese Canadian support helped install a slate of pro-police candidates. Then, in British Columbia’s provincial election last autumn, nonwhite voters strongly preferred the BC Conservatives, who campaigned on stricter drug laws. And in last month’s federal election, within both Vancouver and Toronto’s metropolitan areas, tough-on-crime conservatives received considerable support from South Asian communities.

These are all strong indicators that racial minorities do not, in fact, universally favor drug legalization. But their small population share means there is relatively little polling data to measure their preferences. Since only 7.6 percent of Americans are Asian, for example, a poll of 1,000 randomly selected people will yield an average of only 76 Asian respondents—too small a sample from which to draw meaningful conclusions. You can overcome this barrier by commissioning very large polls, but that’s expensive.

Nonetheless, last autumn, the Centre for Responsible Drug Policy (a nonprofit I founded and operate) did just that. In partnership with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, we contracted Mainstreet Research to ask over 12,000 British Columbians: “Do you agree or disagree that criminalizing drugs is racist?”

The results undermine progressives’ assumptions. Only 26 percent of nonwhite respondents agreed (either strongly or weakly) that drug criminalization is racist, while over twice as many (56 percent) disagreed. The share of nonwhite respondents who strongly disagreed was three times larger than the share that strongly agreed (43.2 percent versus 14.3 percent). These results are fairly conclusive for this jurisdiction, given the poll’s sample size of 2,233 nonwhite respondents and a margin of error of 2 percent.

Notably, Indigenous respondents seemed to be the most anti-drug ethnic group: only 20 percent agreed (weakly or strongly) with the “criminalization is racist” narrative, while 61 percent disagreed. Once again, those who disagreed were much more vehement than those who agreed. With a sample size of 399 respondents, the margin of error here (5 percent) is too small to confound these dramatic results.

We saw similar outcomes for other minority groups, such as South Asians, Southeast Asians, Latinos, and blacks. While Middle Eastern respondents also seemed to follow this trend, the poll included too few of them to draw definitive conclusions. Only East Asians were divided on the issue, though a clear majority still disagreed that criminalization is racist.

As this poll was limited to British Columbian respondents, our findings cannot necessarily be assumed to hold throughout Canada and the United States. But since the province is arguably the most drug-permissive jurisdiction within the two countries, these results could represent the ceiling of pro-drug, anti-criminalization attitudes among minority communities.

Legalization proponents and their progressive allies take pride in being “anti-racist.” Our polling, however, suggests that they are not listening to the communities they profess to care about.

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National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in 324 Defendants Charged in Connection with Over $14.6 Billion in Alleged Fraud

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James Lyons-Weiler's avatar By James Lyons-Weiler

A 50-district dragnet uncovers transnational fraud, AI-driven deception, and systemic theft from Medicare, Medicaid, and U.S. taxpayers totaling over $14.6 billion

The Department of Justice announced Monday the outcome of the 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, the largest coordinated enforcement action against health care fraud in U.S. history. Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against 324 individuals across 50 federal judicial districts and 12 State Attorneys General’s Offices, including 96 licensed medical professionals—among them doctors, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists. The defendants stand accused of orchestrating fraudulent schemes amounting to more than $14.6 billion in intended losses to Medicare, Medicaid, and other federally funded programs.

This historic enforcement action more than doubles the previous national record of $6 billion. As part of this effort, federal and state authorities have seized over $245 million in cash, luxury vehicles, cryptocurrency, and other high-value assets. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) separately reported that it successfully prevented more than $4 billion in fraudulent payments in the months leading up to the Takedown. CMS also confirmed that it suspended or revoked the billing privileges of 205 providers linked to fraudulent activity. In the civil domain, federal agencies filed actions against 20 defendants tied to $14.2 million in alleged fraud and finalized civil settlements with an additional 106 defendants, totaling $34.3 million in recovered funds.

The Takedown was led by the Health Care Fraud Unit of the DOJ Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and carried out in close coordination with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices nationwide, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and multiple state law enforcement agencies. Medicaid Fraud Control Units in 18 states also played a central role in investigating and prosecuting the cases.

In remarks accompanying the announcement, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. emphasized that the agency would aggressively work with law enforcement to eliminate the “pervasive health care fraud that drove up costs and harmed patients under the former administration.” Attorney General Pamela Bondi echoed the urgency, calling the action “justice delivered to those who steal from taxpayers and endanger lives.” Matthew R. Galeotti, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, underscored the gravity of the crimes targeted, noting that fraudulent schemes often lead not only to financial losses but also to direct patient harm, including medically unnecessary procedures and worsened addiction outcomes.

FBI Director Kash Patel emphasized that this Takedown represents the largest in the bureau’s history, highlighting the theft of more than $13 billion from federal health programs. Acting Inspector General Juliet T. Hodgkins of HHS-OIG described the scale of harm as unprecedented and reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to safeguarding the public.

Among the most significant components of this national operation was Operation Gold Rush, which uncovered a sophisticated transnational conspiracy responsible for over $10 billion in fraudulent Medicare claims. The scheme was orchestrated by foreign nationals who, acting as a coordinated criminal enterprise, acquired more than 30 medical supply companies across the United States. These companies had already been enrolled in Medicare, and were then used to funnel false claims for urinary catheters and other durable medical equipment. Stolen identities of over one million Americans were used to submit these claims, which had not been requested by patients, nor ordered by physicians.

The conspiracy relied on straw owners sent from Russia and Estonia to the U.S., who were directed by co-conspirators communicating through encrypted channels. Using fraudulent documentation, these straw owners opened U.S. bank accounts for laundering proceeds. Though the organization submitted over $10.6 billion in claims, CMS successfully blocked most of the payments. Only approximately $41 million reached the conspirators via Medicare, but approximately $900 million was disbursed by Medicare supplemental insurers before the fraud was detected.

Four individuals were arrested in Estonia and eight others were apprehended at major U.S. airports and border crossings as they attempted to flee. Law enforcement seized approximately $27.7 million in fraud proceeds from this operation.

Federal prosecutors filed related charges in five districts: the Central District of California, the Middle District of Florida, the Northern District of Illinois, the District of New Jersey, and the Eastern District of New York.

In a separate scheme centered in Illinois, the Department brought charges against five individuals, including two executives from Pakistani marketing firms, who used artificial intelligence to generate fake audio recordings of Medicare beneficiaries purporting to consent to receive medical equipment. This fraudulent data was sold to laboratories and equipment suppliers, which used it to file $703 million in false claims. Approximately $418 million was ultimately paid out on these claims, and the government has so far seized $44.7 million in related assets. The fraud involved not only AI-based deception but also the illegal sale and laundering of stolen personal health information.

Another case exposed a billing company executive based in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates who conspired with addiction treatment centers to submit approximately $650 million in fraudulent claims to Arizona Medicaid. Some services billed were never rendered, and others were so deficient as to provide no therapeutic value. The operation targeted vulnerable individuals, including members of Native American tribes and the homeless. Kickbacks were paid for patient referrals, and the executive used at least $25 million in illicit funds to purchase a $2.9 million home in Dubai.

The Department also charged 49 defendants in connection with over $1.17 billion in fraudulent claims tied to telemedicine and genetic testing. In one Florida case, an owner of both telemedicine and durable medical equipment companies orchestrated a $46 million scheme involving deceptive telemarketing campaigns that generated unauthorized genetic testing and equipment claims. The Department continues to prioritize cases involving telehealth-based fraud, which often exploits unwitting patients through misrepresented or manufactured consent.

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Prescription opioid diversion was another central focus of the Takedown. A total of 74 defendants, including 44 licensed medical professionals, were charged across 58 criminal cases for illegally distributing more than 15 million opioid pills. One Texas pharmacy alone was responsible for over 3 million of these pills, which included highly addictive substances such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and carisoprodol. The DEA concurrently announced 93 administrative actions to revoke licenses and registrations of pharmacies and providers implicated in the unlawful handling of controlled substances.

Other cases include a $28.7 million scheme in Tennessee involving medications falsely billed to the Federal Employees’ Compensation Fund, where prescriptions were neither authorized by physicians nor dispensed as claimed. In separate indictments filed in Washington and California, medical providers were charged with stealing fentanyl and hydrocodone intended for pediatric patients under anesthesia.

The geographic scope of the Takedown was vast. In total, 189 federal cases were filed across all 50 federal judicial districts, and 91 state-level cases were brought in 12 states by participating Attorneys General. This unprecedented coordination underscores the national impact and bipartisan support for rooting out fraud in American health care systems.

To enhance ongoing efforts, the Department also announced the establishment of a new Health Care Fraud Data Fusion Center.

This joint initiative brings together specialists from the DOJ’s Health Care Fraud Unit, HHS-OIG, FBI, and CMS to leverage cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and large-scale data analytics to detect emergent fraud patterns. The Fusion Center aligns with Executive Order 14243, “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos,” which mandates interagency cooperation and data-sharing to reduce redundancy and increase efficiency in enforcement.

Principal Assistant Deputy Chief Jacob Foster, Assistant Deputy Chief Rebecca Yuan, Trial Attorney Miriam L. Glaser Dauermann, and Data Analyst Elizabeth Nolte coordinated this year’s Takedown from within the DOJ’s Health Care Fraud Unit. Prosecutors from the National Rapid Response team and regional Strike Forces in 27 districts led casework alongside U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and 18 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units. Additional support came from the Department of Labor, VA-OIG, IRS Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Office of Personnel Management, the United States Postal Service OIG, and numerous other federal and local agencies.

Image sources: US DOJ

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