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Investigation Finds Police Justified in Shooting Death of Suspect on Christmas Day 2015

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This isn’t something you’ll find on Todayville every day.  However, in this particular case the details of this report are so astounding we decided to share it as it was released to the media from the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team.   These are the findings of the ASIRT investigation into the fatal shooting of a Red Deer man back on Christmas Day of 2015.   The photo on the thumbnail is courtesy of Global News.

ASIRT confirms RCMP officers’ actions justified

On December 25, 2015, the Director of Law Enforcement directed ASIRT (Alberta Serious Incident Response Team) to investigate the circumstances surrounding an officer-involved shooting which resulted in the death of a 37-year-old male Red Deer resident.

That day, in the early morning hours, the man attended the residence he shared with his common-law. At that location, it is alleged that he committed several serious violent criminal offences. Following a series of 911 calls, Red Deer RCMP began investigating the matter and information was obtained that suggested that the man might be found operating a stolen truck. RCMP began searching for the man and the stolen vehicle.

An RCMP officer located the stolen truck being operated near Sylvan Lake and activated his emergency equipment to initiate a vehicle stop. The driver of the stolen truck, identified as the affected person, stopped the vehicle in the middle of the road. As the officer prepared to exit the vehicle, without warning, the stolen truck reversed at a high rate of speed and struck the police vehicle. The force used to ram the police vehicle was so significant it resulted in minor injuries to the officer and disabled the officer’s vehicle. The affected person then fled the scene in the stolen truck.

At approximately 12:50 p.m., RCMP received a 911 call reporting that the man had attended the rural home of people he knew in the area, stating he was in trouble for ramming a police vehicle and requesting money, a cell phone, and keys. The residents refused to provide assistance, and the man, unhappy with the refusal to provide assistance, returned to the stolen truck and drove it into the residence and a snowmobile in the yard before driving away.

Officers located the stolen truck abandoned in the Caterpillar (CAT) Finning lot in the Edgar Industrial area in Red Deer. The man had left the truck, entered a CAT 937K front-end loader, and began driving it through the area. He drove through and over a fence gaining access to the Baker Hughes parking lot. There, he struck multiple vehicles with the loader, ramming them and/or flipping them over onto their sides, causing extensive damage. He was located in a nearby field driving the loader into and over stacked hay bales.

RCMP followed the man as he drove the loader through fields and on roadways including driving it on a portion of Highway 2, where he came within feet of civilian vehicles on the roadway. As the loader encountered a substantial amount of traffic in the areas it travelled, RCMP were extremely concerned about public safety and officer safety. In order to ensure public safety, RCMP temporarily closed access to the highway to prevent the front-end loader from coming into close proximity to additional civilian vehicles. A request for the assistance of the RCMP Emergency Response Team and the Calgary Police Service’s HAWCS helicopter was made. It is clear that the RCMP were hoping to resolve the situation without the use of significant force while attempting to divert civilians from the area to ensure their safety.

At approximately 1:30 p.m., two officers, in two separate unmarked police vehicles, were attempting to set up a spike belt on Range Road 273A when the man drove into the area and, upon seeing the officers, drove directly at the police vehicles. As both officers attempted to reposition their vehicles, one officer, operating an unmarked Dodge Charger and facing the oncoming loader, was required to proceed in reverse on the roadway. That officer reversed into a driveway and was followed in by the man in the loader. The second officer, having observed the vehicles turn into the driveway, parked and ran through the trees towards the driveway and yard.

Having followed the first police vehicle into the driveway, the man was able to ram the police vehicle with the loader and push it into a nearby large tree, effectively pinning the officer, who was still inside, and beginning to crush the Charger between the loader and the tree. The man attempted to lower the bucket down onto the roof of the Charger but it became wedged or hung up in the tree and he was unable to do so. The second officer had, by this time, come upon the scene and having observed the attack, he began firing his service pistol at the man in the cab of the front-end loader. Notwithstanding damage to the door of the Charger, the first officer managed to escape the Charger and also fired upon the man in the front-end loader.

Both officers ceased firing when the front-end loader proceeded into a nearby field where it twice moved around in a large circle in the field. Officers in a 4 x 4 vehicle drove up parallel to the front-end loader and observed the man to be slumped on the floor of the cab, motionless. Having concerns for public safety and wanting to get the man medical care as soon as possible, a decision was made to attempt to shoot out the tires to try and slow or stop the loader. An officer discharged his police service weapon at the front left tire of the loader, which had no impact and made it readily apparent that this raised a risk of uncontrolled ricochet, so no additional shots were fired. The front-end loader eventually straightened out, driving into a densely treed area where it knocked over a large tree before becoming lodged.

An officer was able to remove the unresponsive man from the cab, and upon Emergency Medical Services’ arrival and assessment, the man was pronounced deceased.

An autopsy was conducted by the Chief Medical Examiner’s office. It was determined the cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. Toxicology results found both methamphetamine and amphetamine, a metabolite of methamphetamine, in the man’s blood.

ASIRT executive director, Susan D. Hughson, Q.C., received the completed ASIRT investigation and after a careful review of the evidence has confirmed all the officers involved were lawfully placed, were acting lawfully in the execution of their duties, and the use of force was reasonable and justified.

The man had been ingesting methamphetamine and had engaged in unpredictable, violent acts.The Caterpillar 938K that he was driving has an approximate operating weight of 35,104 lbs, and has the capacity to carry an additional 20,997 lbs. It was approximately 10 feet tall, 9 feet wide, and 24 feet long. It has a top speed of 40 km/hr. The standard tire is a Michelin XHA2, which has a reinforced sidewall and a special rubber compound to reduce tearing. The cab is designed for safety with curved glass and integrated roll cage.

Operating this front-end loader in the manner he did resulted in it becoming a weaponized 35,000 lb blunt instrument that was much more difficult to stop or contain than any other standard vehicle. Even prior to the ramming of the Charger police vehicle, it is my opinion that the officers had a duty to ensure public safety and apprehend the man to render the situation safe.

Importantly, officers did not directly engage the man. Instead, it was the man who escalated the incident by attacking the officers. In doing so, he committed acts objectively capable of causing death or grievous bodily harm.

An officer may use lethal force where he or she reasonably believes that the someone presents a risk of death or grievous bodily harm to another person. In this case, the situation had gone beyond the mere perception of risk. The man’s actions, in ramming the police vehicle while the officer was still inside, pushing it into a tree, and trying to lower the bucket onto the roof of the vehicle, placed that officer at imminent risk of grievous bodily harm or death and only the split second decision to use lethal force prevented that from happening.

The force used was necessary and reasonable in all the circumstances notwithstanding the tragic outcome. This finding in no way diminishes the sad fact that a family has lost their loved one. On behalf of ASIRT, the Executive Director extends condolences to the family and friends of the deceased in relation to this tragic event.

ASIRT would like to take this opportunity to thank those who came forward in response to our request for witnesses. Although not often mentioned, in any ASIRT investigation, the assistance of members of the public can be critical. Those who come forward are just another reflection of the good people in this province.

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, as well as serious or sensitive allegations of police misconduct.

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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Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson slams CBC for only interviewing pro-LGBT doctors about UK report on child ‘sex changes’

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The recently published Cass Review found that ‘gender medicine’ is ‘built on shaky foundations’ and recommended against surgical or pharmaceutical intervention for gender-confused children.

Dr. Jordan Peterson has condemned the government-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for handpicking doctors to discuss evidence against the gender “transitioning” of children.   

In an April 15 X post, Peterson blasted the CBC for only selecting pro-LBGT doctors to discuss the U.K. National Health Service’s Cass Review, which exposes the dangers of “transitioning” children through mutilating means, such as pharmaceutical drugs and surgeries.

“All the truth the unrepentant butcher-enablers at @CBCNews are capable of is invisibly hidden in this one line: ‘Canadian doctors who spoke to CBC disagree…’” he slammed.   

“Right. All the ‘doctors’ who spoke to @CBCNews were chosen because they disagreed,” Peterson asserted.   

“I find them detestable,” he added. “Everything they publish is a lie in one damned way or another.”   

“And these lies lead to the crimes against humanity denounced by the Cass report.” 

The Cass Review, published earlier this month, is the world’s largest review into “transgender” interventions for minors. Dr. Hilary Cass, the pediatrician commissioned by the UK’s National Health Service to review the transgender “services” being made available to gender-confused minors, is scathing in her analysis.  

Cass found that “gender medicine” is “built on shaky foundations,” and that while these drastic interventions should be approached with extreme caution, “quite the reverse happened in the field of gender care [sic] for children.”  

However, the report was not well received by the CBC, which ran an article criticizing the report and the U.K.’s recent decision to ban puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for youth under 16.  

“While experts in the field say more studies should be done, Canadian doctors who spoke to CBC News disagree with the finding that there isn’t enough evidence puberty blockers can help,” the CBC wrote.  

However, as Peterson pointed out, the CBC only interviewed pro-LGBT doctors who supported their agenda, including one who suggested that “transgender” surgeries are as natural as giving birth.  

“That would be kind of like saying for a pregnant woman, since we lacked randomized clinical trials for the care of people in pregnancy, we’re not going to provide care for you… It’s completely unethical,” Dr. Jake Donaldson, a Calgary physician who treats “transgender” patients, told CBC.  

“There actually is a lot of evidence, just not in the form of randomized clinical trials,” he added.  

On the same day as the CBC report, Calgary pediatrician Dr. J. Edward Les wrote an article published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, agreeing with the Cass Review conclusions.

“If nothing else, the scathing final report of the Cass Review released this week (but commissioned four years ago to investigate the disturbing practices of the UK’s Gender Identity Service), is a reminder that doctors historically are guilty of many sins,” he wrote in his opening line.  

Les also blasted the Canadian law, particularly Bill C-4, which banned a number of practices considered to be “conversion therapy,” including “any practice, service or treatment designed to change a person’s gender identity.”  

“As far as I know, no one has been charged, let alone imprisoned, since the bill was passed into law,” wrote the doctor. “But it certainly has cast a chill on the willingness of providers to deliver appropriate counselling to gender-confused children: few dare to risk it.”  

Indeed, while the CBC was unable or perhaps unwilling to find doctors who agreed with the Cass report, Les is hardly alone in challenging the LGBT narrative surrounding the mutilation of the gender-confused, especially minors.

LifeSiteNews has compiled a list of medical professions and experts who warn against “transgender” surgeries, warning of irreversible changes and lifelong side effects.     

Moreover, internal documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) have shown that doctors who offer so-called “gender-affirming care” know that transgender hormones cause serious diseases, including cancer, but prescribed them anyway.  

The internal documents, dubbed the “WPATH FILES,” include emails and messages from a private discussion forum by doctors, as well as statements from a video call of WPATH members. The files reveal that the doctors working for WPATH know that so-called “gender-affirming care” can cause severe mental and physical disease and that it is impossible for minors to give “informed consent” to it.   

As LifeSiteNews has previously noted, research does not support the assertions from transgender activists that surgical or pharmaceutical intervention to “affirm” confusion is “necessary medical care” or that it is helpful in preventing the suicides of gender-confused individuals.    

In fact, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, infertility, and suicidality.     

There is also  overwhelming evidence that those who undergo “gender transitioning” are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not given irreversible surgery. A Swedish study found that those who underwent “gender reassignment” surgery ended up with a 19.2 times greater risk of suicide.    

Indeed, there is proof that the most loving and helpful approach to people who think they are a different sex is not to validate them in their confusion but to show them the truth.     

A new study on the side effects of transgender “sex change” surgeries discovered that 81 percent of those who had undergone “sex change” surgeries in the past five years reported experiencing pain simply from normal movement in the weeks and months that followed — and that many other side effects manifest as well.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

NPR senior editor admits extreme bias in Russia collusion, Hunter Biden laptop, COVID coverage

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From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

‘There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed. … one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies … ’

A longtime senior editor at National Public Radio (NPR) published a blistering critique of the government-funded “news” outlet’s extreme liberal bias, citing how NPR willfully “turned a blind eye” to the truth concerning alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the origin of COVID-19.

The Free Press’ explosive 3,500-word op-ed “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.” by Uri Berliner confirms what many heartland Americans have known for decades: “An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America.”

“Our news audience doesn’t come close to reflecting America,” wrote Berliner, who has worked at NPR for 25 years. “It’s overwhelmingly white and progressive, and clustered around coastal cities and college towns.”

Berliner paints a picture of an organization driven by DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) that almost always “defaulted to ideological story lines,” and is damaged by “the absence of viewpoint diversity.”

“I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans,” Berliner wrote. “None.”

When he presented his findings at an all-hands editorial staff meeting, suggesting “we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, the response wasn’t hostile. It was worse. It was met with profound indifference.”

Berliner draws attention to three enormous examples of NPR’s blindness regarding enormously important stories, a blindness that likely produced real-world consequences concerning the two most recent U.S. presidential elections and COVID-19 policies.

Russia collusion hoax

“Persistent rumors that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia over the election became the catnip that drove reporting,” Berliner said. “At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff.”

“But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse,” Berliner confessed. “Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.”

“It is one thing to swing and miss on a major story,” Berliner allowed. “What’s worse is to pretend it never happened, to move on with no mea culpas, no self-reflection. Especially when you expect high standards of transparency from public figures and institutions but don’t practice those standards yourself. That’s what shatters trust and engenders cynicism about the media.”

Hunter Biden’s laptop ignored ‘because it could help Trump’

After the New York Post published a shocking report about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop just weeks before the 2020 election, “NPR turned a blind eye.”

NPR’s managing editor dismissed the important story, saying “we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”

“But it wasn’t a pure distraction, or a product of Russian disinformation, as dozens of former and current intelligence officials suggested,” Berliner wrote. “The laptop did belong to Hunter Biden. Its contents revealed his connection to the corrupt world of multimillion-dollar influence peddling and its possible implications for his father.”

“The laptop was newsworthy. But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched,” he continued. “During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR’s best and most fair-minded journalists said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump.”

NPR’s COVID-19 pandemic coverage ‘defaulted to ideological story lines’

Berliner described how NPR’s COVID-19 coverage fervently embraced a one-sided political narrative, promoting the notion that the virus came from a wild animal market in Wuhan while totally disregarding the possibility that it might have escaped from a Wuhan lab.

“The lab leak theory came in for rough treatment almost immediately, dismissed as racist or a right-wing conspiracy theory,” Berliner said. “Anthony Fauci and former NIH head Francis Collins, representing the public health establishment, were its most notable critics. And that was enough for NPR. We became fervent members of Team Natural Origin, even declaring that the lab leak had been debunked by scientists.

“Reporting on a possible lab leak soon became radioactive,” Berliner said. “But the lab leak hypothesis wouldn’t die.

“Over the course of the pandemic, a number of investigative journalists made compelling, if not conclusive, cases for the lab leak. But at NPR, we weren’t about to swivel or even tiptoe away from the insistence with which we backed the natural origin story,” Berliner wrote. “We didn’t budge when the Energy Department — the federal agency with the most expertise about laboratories and biological research — concluded, albeit with low confidence, that a lab leak was the most likely explanation for the emergence of the virus.”

“Instead, we introduced our coverage of that development on February 28, 2023, by asserting confidently that ‘the scientific evidence overwhelmingly points to a natural origin for the virus.’”

In all three cases, “politics were blotting out the curiosity and independence that ought to have been driving our work.”

DEI now trumps journalistic principles at NPR

“To truly understand how independent journalism suffered at NPR, you need to step inside the organization,” explained Berliner, who emphasized that the most damaging development at NPR over the last few years has been the absence of viewpoint diversity.

DEI considerations trumped journalistic principles. “Identity” groups within the organization — including Transgender People in Technology Throughout Public Media and NPR Pride (LGBTQIA employees at NPR) are now “given a seat at the table in determining the terms and vocabulary of our news coverage.”

“There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed. It’s frictionless — one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies,” Berliner said. “It’s almost like an assembly line.”

Berliner concluded:

With declining ratings, sorry levels of trust, and an audience that has become less diverse over time, the trajectory for NPR is not promising. Two paths seem clear. We can keep doing what we’re doing, hoping it will all work out. Or we could start over, with the basic building blocks of journalism. We could face up to where we’ve gone wrong. News organizations don’t go in for that kind of reckoning. But there’s a good reason for NPR to be the first: we’re the ones with the word public in our name.

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