Police Shooting Victim’s Family Press For Answers
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 15:30
Family members continue to ask questions about how a La Loche woman died after being shot by Prince Albert police officers in March 2008.
Myrna Laprise says she’s frustrated that none of the officers taking the stand at an inquest into her aunt’s death can remember the precise conversations they had with her shortly before shots were fired.
So far, a coroner’s inquest has heard that 44-year-old Jacqueline Montgrand was in the process of being evicted from a home when she charged at two officers with a knife.
All of them say it happened unexpectedly as she was quite cooperative at first.
Laprise wants to know what happened in the time period between when Montgrand sat down to tie her shoes to leave, and when she got up and pulled a knife out of the kitchen sink.
She also wishes a female police officer had been called in to deal with the situation.
Earlier today, the inquest heard evidence regarding what part drugs or alcohol might have played in Montgrand’s death.
A Winnipeg toxicologist testified that the level of alcohol in Montgrand’s system was four times the legal limit allowed for drivers, as well as traces of an anti-depressant and the active ingredient in marijuana.
He testified that this combination of substances could cause someone who initially appeared friendly to suddenly become hostile.
But under questioning from Montgrand’s family, he admitted that it was possible that something that was said or done to Montgrand could also have caused her to “go off”.