B.C. watchdog investigating two police killings in less than a week

British Columbia’s police watchdog is investigating its second police shooting in three days after officers killed a distressed man in Surrey early Saturday, sparking alarm from civil liberties advocates.

The hacktivist group Anonymous says it took down the RCMP’s national website Sunday as part of a campaign to avenge a fallen “comrade”, who died in a police-involved shooting in Dawson Creek, B.C. this week. In the US the FBI released statistics that found of the 616 police officers killed in the line of duty in that country between 1994 and 2003, 52 were shot dead by their own gun after it was taken from them in a struggle.

It was until shots were fired, when police officers figured out that they had the wrong suspect.

Police have not said whether the masked man was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. The scene has been secured along with any physical evidence, pending the arrival of Independent Investigations Office of BC investigators (IIO) Friday July 17.

An officer appears to kick away an object from the man’s hand before he is handcuffed and first aid is administered.

The meeting was the last of five public consultations on the Site C dam held this month.

The video appears to have been taken on a cellphone from a room in the Stonebridge Hotel overlooking the Fixx Urban Grill restaurant where a B.C. Hydro public information session took place. The man moves slightly on the ground before becoming still as blood pools beneath him.

Members of the group have claimed responsibility for a series of cyberattacks against RCMP websites on Sunday, while also threatening to reveal the identity of the RCMP officer involved in the fatal shooting. It called for protests outside RCMP stations across Canada and said it would raise funds for the man’s burial.

Although police have confirmed the man who was shot was wearing a mask, authorities are not confirming if it was the Guy Fawkes mask associated with the group, according to the Victoria Times Colonist.

She said the IIO would not identify the officers and that the B.C. Coroners Service would release the name of the deceased. “The individual was escorted from the event and subsequently came into contact with police just outside”.

BC Hydro has yet to issue a statement on the shooting.

Several lawsuits by environmental groups, citizens and First Nations have been launched to try to stop construction of the controversial dam and are proceeding through the courts.