Crown recommends no charges against Edmonton officer who shot man

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An Edmonton police constable who fatally shot an unarmed man will not face criminal charges despite Alberta’s police watchdog concluding there were grounds to believe the officer committed a “culpable homicide.”

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) released a report Wednesday on the killing of 33-year-old Steven Nguyen, who died after Edmonton Police Service Const. Alex Doduk shot him four times on June 5, 2021.

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“Within seconds of an interaction with (Doduk), (Nguyen) was dead,” ASIRT executive director Michael Ewenson wrote.

“No weapon of any sort was located on the affected person and the subject officer’s justification for shooting is that an item resembling a firearm was pointed at him in poor lighting conditions. The item was a blue cell phone.”

Ewenson — a career Crown prosecutor — concluded there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Doduk committed a crime and referred the case to the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service to see if it met the Crown’s standards for prosecution.

“ASIRT subsequently received that opinion,” Ewenson wrote. “ACPS recommended no charges be laid.”

The case is the latest in which ASIRT has found grounds to criminally charge an officer, only to be rebuffed by the Crown. The prosecutor’s office says this is because its legal standard — that there must be a “reasonable likelihood of conviction” to proceed with a case — is higher than that of ASIRT, which must only find “reasonable grounds” to believe an offence occurred.

The highest profile such case has been that of Pacey Dumas, an Indigenous youth who suffered a severe head injury after being kicked in the head by an Edmonton police officer. The Crown refused to prosecute the case and shot down Dumas’s efforts to launch a private prosecution.

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In the Doduk case, ACPS spokesperson Michelle Davio said prosecutors assessed the evidence and determined they could not prove his actions were “unreasonable” under Section 25 of the Criminal Code, which governs police officer use of force.

“In hindsight, the perception of the constable was mistaken, and the result was tragic, but the action taken could not be proven to be criminal. Given this conclusion, no charges were recommended by the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service.”

Police spokesperson Cheryl Voordenhout said Doduk is on paid leave unrelated to the Nguyen incident. Doduk is also facing charges of assault with a weapon in a separate case for allegedly injuring a man with his baton in 2019. That case is next in court Aug. 7 for a pre-trial conference.

Nguyen’s family said they were stunned by the outcome.

“It’s devastating and heartbreaking,” sister Melisa Solano told reporters outside the Edmonton courthouse. “He was unarmed — he didn’t deserve to die.” 

“We are shocked with the Crown’s decision. ASIRT did a thorough investigation and believed a criminal offence was committed, but the Alberta Crown prosecutor’s office refuses to press charges, without giving our family a reason why. It is infuriating we don’t have a reason. This is wrong and something needs to change.”

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The night in question

Doduk and his partner were dispatched to the Rosslyn neighbourhood after a call about a man carrying a weapon. A resident told dispatchers he saw a man “shaking, rocking or dancing back and forth” holding a bag and an object variously described as a knife, an ice pick or a screw driver.

The uniformed officers arrived on scene in an unmarked police SUV with its lights off. They encountered Nguyen, who told him he was bottle picking. At some point, he reached into his pocket but assured police he had no weapons. Doduk said he ordered Nguyen to remove his hand, and that he became “agitated” and shouted threats when Doduk unholstered his gun.

Doduk claims he feared for his life in the seconds before opening fire. He exercised his right to remain silent, but claimed in a written report that Nguyen stepped back and was “fully and completely engulfed in shadow.” He claimed he saw the barrel of a gun and “expected to see muzzle flashes of bullets incoming at him.”

Doduk fired around six rounds, four of which hit Nguyen and at least one of which ricocheted off a lamppost. Other officers and paramedics quickly arrived on scene, where Nguyen was declared dead. The only items found on or near his body were a cell phone and a blue grill lighter.

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Despite being told by a supervisor he had to leave the scene, Doduk returned and took a photo of the phone, telling officers “he pulled this on me.”

ASIRT noted Doduk’s later descriptions of the phone “may be purposely tailored” based on the photo. Doduk said the phone had a silver ring around the camera, which he claimed looked like the inside of a pistol barrel.

ASIRT also took issue with Doduk’s claims about lighting at the scene. Doduk’s partner said he had no visibility issues, and a re-enactment conducted at the same time a year later produced none of the shadows Doduk claims concealed Nguyen.

Another issue was a police-issued flashlight spotted on the ground by Air-1 when it flew past to photograph the scene. Doduk said he might have used the flashlight — which was engraved with another officer’s name — while performing first aid on Nguyen. He denied using it prior to the shooting.

A toxicology report found Nguyen had “some” methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death.

‘Shrouded in secrecy’

Samantha Labahn, who along with Tom Engel is representing the Nguyen family, said decisions whether to charge police officers “cannot be shrouded in secrecy.”

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“The Crown’s decision not to prosecute is perverse,” she said. “It’s baffling how anyone could have come to this conclusion.”

She noted B.C. requires prosecutors to release a plain language statement whenever they decline to prosecute law enforcement officers.

“We don’t even know who the Crown is. All we know is there was an absurd decision, following a comprehensive and frankly outstanding investigation by ASIRT, which found that Doduk lied, and that they believed he committed a criminal offence.”

Engel said the case shows there is a double standard in prosecuting police officers and called on Alberta minister of justice Mickey Amery to reform the system.

Nguyen’s family vowed to press on with a $1 million lawsuit against EPS. In a statement of defence filed in 2022, Chief Dale McFee defended Doduk’s actions, saying any losses suffered by the family “were caused entirely or contributed to by the intentional or negligent actions or omissions of Steven.”

jwakefield@postmedia.com

twitter.com/jonnywakefield

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