March 28, 2024

Father angry after RCMP cleared in son’s shooting

The Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner (OPCC) released a report Wednesday that ruled the three Mounties used reasonable force when they killed Alvin Wright in his Langley home in August 2010.

The officers said Alvin confronted them with a hunting knife and hatchet, and he was shot after he stepped toward an officer with the knife raised.

But Alvin’s father can’t believe that account.

“I think the (OPCC) should be called the office of police protection instead,” Allan Wright said Thursday.

“My son has no criminal record and no history of behaviour like that,” he added. “This is one night where he decides to do that and they justify killing him for that. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

He admits that his son had been drinking and had fought with his common-law wife, but says Alvin was asleep in his room when police entered his son’s house.

“There were no crimes to investigate,” he said. “The police had no reason to believe anyone was in danger.”

The Mounties turned a “peaceful and controlled scene” into a deadly shooting, he alleged.

“Nothing about this makes any sense until you realize, as I do now, that the job of the Police Complaint Commissioner is to protect the police,” he said.

He hopes the “truth” will come out next week during a Coroner’s Inquest into his son’s death.

Wright’s widow has also launched a civil suit against the RCMP for wrongful death.

Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver

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