HALIFAX -- Forensic identification officers spent Friday combing a property in Eastern Passage, N.S., searching for clues in a fatal police-involved shooting that left a man dead.
RCMP were called to a home on Howard Avenue shortly after 4 p.m. on Thursday, responding to a report of an armed man, who was uttering threats.
"When we arrived on scene, we located the man who was the subject of that complaint, a 60-year-old from that area," said Cpl. Jennifer Clarke. "He was outside of the home with a handgun when we found him."
RCMP say officers tried to de-escalate the situation, but they were unsuccessful.
"Police on scene did try to verbally engage the individual who was the subject of the complaint, and that means speaking with him, trying to get him to drop the weapon, things like that," said Clarke. "When the individual raised the handgun at police, they fired and the individual died at the scene unfortunately."
RCMP won't say how many officers fired at the man or how many times he was shot.
"The matters been referred to SIRT, so the RCMP is not able to provide any more information on the incident itself. We'll await the outcome of that investigation and proceed from there," said Clarke.
The Serious Incident Response Team or SIRT is responsible for investigating all serious incidents in Nova Scotia involving police and are working to piece together what happened.
The man's death is the third fatal police-involved shooting in the Maritimes in less than six weeks.
On June 4, Chantel Moore was killed by Edmundston Police during a wellness check. Eight days later, on June 12, Rodney Levi, was shot and killed by New Brunswick RCMP near Miramichi, N.B.
"Anytime there's a shooting, and anytime somebody dies, it's concerning. It's a serious matter obviously," said legal expert Wayne MacKay.
The name of the man killed in Eastern Passage has not been released. Those who knew the man did not wish to do an interview, but expressed shock at his death.
While MacKay can't speak to any specific case, he says good policing should be to only use deadly force as a last resort.
"I do think it's very important obviously that when we have what turns out to be deadly encounters with the police that we do everything we can to ensure that the police are well trained to do everything in their power to try to de-escalate the situation as much as possible, to obviously, only use deadly force as a final and last resort and, again, that may have happened here," said MacKay.
