Officer Who Shot Lewis Tells Inquest What Happened
By 250 News
Monday, June 02, 2008 03:42 PM
Williams Lake, B.C. - The inquest into the RCMP shooting of 43 year old Donald Dwayne Lewis in August of 2006, has heard from the officer who pulled the trigger.
In an hour long video presented at the inquest, Constable Cole Brewer took the investigators through the events leading up to the fatal shooting.
Brewer says he was first called to the scene after a Mcleese Lake resident who lived alone, was concerned that a man had been camped on a runaway lane near her home. When Brewer arrived at the scene, he said he noticed a motorcycle and on checking the license plate that had expired, he determined the bike had been registered in the name of Sarah Penny of Whistler B.C.
As it turns out, Penny was the wife of Lewis. Brewer said he then went to a campsite where there was a considerable amount of cut wood at a tidy campsite. And he thought “This is more than just somebody from Prince George wanting to avoid paying the overnight camping fee down below.”
“When I looked at a one man tent that was beside a pile of wood, I could hear a man snoring, and when I pulled the tarp back on the tent, I could a man in there sleeping. He awoke at that time and I talked to him asking him how he got the motorcycle. He gave me the wrong name and I became more suspicious. He then, all of a suddenly bolted and began running down the hill. I chased after him and caught him on a very steep section. We were both knocked over and a fight began. During the fight, I tried to get my baton released and eventually was able to, I hit him twice with it, with little effect. At that point, I pulled my pepper spray out and tried to point it at him, but I don’t know where it went. We kept getting up, then fall and wrestle some more down the hill.”
Brewer went on to say Lewis made a threat “After we had fallen down several times he said I’m gonna to kill you F---er, and he was trying to grab my gun and I was trying to prevent him from getting it out of the holster. I got my gun out and hit him with the gun butt knocking him down, and we kept fighting. He got his finger into my eyeball and somewhere during that, I fired one shot at him. The fight actually continued after that, and I got my handcuffs out and eventually got him handcuffed to a tree. His pulse seemed good and I said to him I’m going to get some help, c’mon on let’s quit fighting, enough’s enough. I called on my portable, send an ambulance, a man has been shot. When I got back to my car other police vehicles then arrived , we all walked to try and retrace our steps to where the fight had taken place, and found him still handcuffed to a tree with no pulse.”
The video tape was taken 72 hours after the shooting and Counsel for the Lewis family Cameron Ward argued successfully that the evidence in the video tape should not be used to form the jury’s opinion. Ward says without the benefit of cross examination and the fact 72 hours had passed between the shooting and the taking of the video, the evidence could be tainted.
The inquest continues.
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Posted by: northern taxpayer on June 3 2008 5:33 AM