Bernadette Auger, 48, was shot dead by police on January 16th, 2010.
Auger was Edmonton's second homicide victim of the year.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team is investigating.
the question of the gun
Edmonton police are under investigation in connection with the city's second homicide of 2010 – the officer-involved shooting of Bernadette Auger.
At about 2:20 p.m. Saturday, January 16th a report of a woman carrying around what appeared to be a small handgun brought police to an apartment building at 8411 119 Avenue.
When officers arrived the woman was standing outside the building. She went back inside and at about 2:35 p.m. she emerged with what looked like a gun in her hand.
Police blockaded the area and a heavy police presence descended.
Witnesses then reported hearing at least two gunshots.
An ambulance was called and the woman received emergency care at the scene. She was later pronounced dead after being taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
Details soon emerged that a police officer had shot the woman after she had pointed a weapon directly at him.
A building caretaker, who was a close friend of the victim, told the media the woman was 48-year-old Bernadette Auger.
Homicide detectives arrived at the scene around 4:30 p.m. Edmonton Police Association President Sgt. Tony Simioni was the first official to brief media on what had happened – read more »
"The woman was seen with a gun earlier in the day at an apartment building close by here or residence nearby here," Simioni said.
"The scene was locked down as this incident occurred and our officer at some point during this standoff confronted face-to-face with this woman with a firearm.
"The gun was levelled at our officers and our officers returned fire."
Simioni said the officer was a "senior member with lots of experience" and was not physically harmed. He added all officers involved in such incidents experience emotional stress.
"He's doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. It's never pleasant to have to go through this. It's not what we sign up for.
"However, having said that, we are quite confident he did what he was trained to do. We are quite confident that this was a situation where the member was trying to defend his own life.
"When we have to take a human life, or when we shoot to take a human life ... the public has a right to know whether it was justified or not and at this stage we're quite confident that it was."
Whether the woman had fired any shots, Simioni said he didn't know. Simioni later said Auger was known to police prior to the incident.
Soon after, Clifton Purvis, executive director of the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) arrived to lead the investigation. He later briefed media – read more »
"Our goal is to ultimately uncover the truth," Purvis said.
"After being confronted by police, police fired their weapons two times. The individual was struck," he said, adding the incident stemmed from a domestic dispute.
Purvis said only police officers fired shots during the incident but didn't say if more than one officer had discharged their weapon. He was asked if the woman was carrying a working firearm or a toy.
"I can't confirm or deny whether the handgun was real or was a replica," Purvis said.
He also couldn't say how long the investigation would take.
"I can tell you that we are acutely aware that it is in everybody's best interest to complete the investigation in a timely fashion," Purvis said.
"But we will not cut any corners and our goal is to deliver to the police service and the community a thorough investigation.
"We are receiving the full co-operation of the Edmonton Police Service. I'm not prepared at this time to identify the the deceased or the police officers involved," Purvis said.
ASIRT looks into incidents of serious injury or death that may have resulted from the actions of police.
A female officer was also bitten in the leg during the incident, apparently by a dog belonging to the police canine unit.
Three men, thought to be in their early 20s, were taken into custody for questioning. Their relationship to the female victim remains unknown.
According to an Edmonton Police Service statement issued later in the day, two officers had responded to a report of "trouble not known" and were confronted by a female with a handgun. When the armed female didn't respond to the officers' several commands, two shots were fired by the EPS.
Building tenants and friends of the woman painted a disturbing picture of events leading up to the shooting – read more »
According to the apartment's assistant caretaker, Bernadette Auger had been up all night drinking with her sons and their friends.
"In the afternoon I heard some arguing in the hallway. That was Bernadette. She was holding a gun. She was aiming it at one of her son's girlfriends. I guess she wanted them out of her apartment," Marilyn Fryingpan said.
"She pointed at her son and her daughter-in-law, arguing with them and they were swearing at her," she said.
The next thing Fryingpan knew was that Auger had busted into her apartment and pointed the gun at her.
"I ran to the door, she was opening the door.
"She saw me, then pointed the gun at me, so I closed the door on her and locked it," she said.
Peering through her peephole, Marilyn saw the woman going from suite to suite.
"She was just standing in the hallway, going around and round with the gun.
"I listened in the hallway and I heard her for about 40 minutes going into the suites and saying hello and sorry. Then I heard two gunshots."
Building caretaker Vernon Grainge was outside grabbing a smoke when police arrived. He said officers told him there was a problem in Suite 13.
"I let them in and they go walking up the stairs," Grainge said.
When police reached the second floor landing, a woman appeared one floor above. Grainge recognised her as a tenant.
The woman pointed what looked like a gun at the officers and they yelled at her to drop it, Grainge said.
Standing inside the ground floor foyer, Grainge suddenly had the gun pointed at him. He escaped outside after the woman didn't fire.
"I was thinking, pull the trigger. Pull the trigger and at least then I'll know if it's real," he later said.
A second-floor tenant then saw the two officers run by her apartment, followed by the woman.
Marilyn's mother, Freda Fryingpan, saw the woman leave the building with the gun in her hand.
One unnamed witness said he saw the woman walking outside carrying the gun.
She approached police officers who were hiding behind a garbage bin. Other officers were gathered near a utility pole.
"They yelled, 'Drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun,' " he said.
The woman kept on walking toward the officers, he said. She raised her arm, holding the gun sideways.
The witness crouched down and heard two shots. When he looked up, the officers had surrounded the woman.
"I really feel for those police officers, that's got to be a horrible thing for them to deal with," he said. "They gave her every opportunity."
"All I heard was 'Put the gun down,' " Randy Fryingpan echoed. "Then I heard one gunshot, then another, and then a dog bark."
Marilyn said she looked out her window and saw a smudge of blood-stained snow and what looked like a gun.
"It's not like her," Marilyn said of her friend's actions.
It later emerged that alcohol, pills and anger had fueled the day's unfortunate incident – read more »
Bernadette Auger grew up in Wabasca, a hamlet (population of just over 2000) located about 270 kilometres north of Edmonton. She had four grown children and at least two grandchildren.
A car accident eight years ago left Auger with lingering head injuries and chronic back pain.
"She almost passed away at that time. She was in a coma," stepsister Sherry Cardinal said.
"She was telling us she was constantly in pain – her back and her neck. It could have been the medication that did that to her.
"She was a real good mother who took care of her kids. She was nice and kind. I can't believe it," she said.
Sherry and another stepsister, Carol Cardinal, said they had lost touch with Auger after she moved to Edmonton in late fall 2009.
Neither had spoken to Auger since she visited Peerless Lake (about 80 kilometres northwest of Wabasca) following the death of their father in April 2009. Carol said Auger appeared to be using drugs or alcohol at the time.
"When she came here when our dad passed away for the wake and funeral, we couldn't really talk to her," she said. "She was using too much pills."
Friends in Edmonton said Auger also self-medicated with sleeping pills and pain pills.
Assistant building caretaker Marilyn Fryingpan said Bernadette was typically a quiet person, but she had a drinking problem and recently stopped taking her medication.
"She's a nice person, quiet. She doesn't really talk until you speak to her. She didn't look too well. She had headaches everyday. She couldn't deal with so many problems," Marilyn said.
Auger worried about supporting her sons, who had moved in with her.
"I think she was confused. She didn't know what was going on," she said.
Marilyn decribed another time when Bernadette tried to harm herself.
"She tried to burn herself down in her suite. I took my master key and went to open the door. She had put a phone book on the stove," she recalled.
"She used to say bad things when she's angry, like suicidal talk," Marilyn's mother, Freda Fryingpan said.
"Every morning when she gets up she has a sore back and there is something else, her head, and I guess she told her boyfriend, that 'I wish I was dead,' " she said.
"She just wanted to go ... she's tired of life. I'm still confused and shocked about all of this," Marilyn said. "I'm missing her."
Her common-law husband, George Coward, said that Auger had short-term memory loss and was on anti-depressants. He also said Auger had a history of talking about suicide.
"The last few days she's been very sick. She said her bones were sore, her body was tired. She just kept sleeping," Coward told the Edmonton Sun.
He said the trouble had begun the previous night. Auger's sons were partying in her suite while he and Bernadette were trying to sleep.
"She got up once, was mad at a couple of her boys," Coward said.
On the morning before she was shot, Auger made a house call to a friend to cut her friend's hair.
"When she came back, she was agitated," Coward said. He didn't know what had set her off.
After she saw two of her sons fighting over a video game, Coward said she over-reacted and called police.
"I said that didn't make sense, took the phone from her and told them not to send anyone and hung up."
The 911 operator called back and said police would still have to check, Coward said.
Within a half-hour, Auger was dead.
"She was just this incredibly beautiful woman that was very into arts and crafts," Coward said.
"This woman had changed my life, made me a better person. We looked after each other, you know? It was a relationship where you didn't have to say anything – they do it before you say it."
Coward said they had planned to marry this summer.
The question of the gun
Soon after the shooting, debate arose over whether the gun the woman was carrying was real or a toy replica. The question was put to Edmonton Police Association President Sgt. Tony Simioni.
"Obviously that's not something an officer can tell," Simioni said. "You have to operate as if the gun is real."
About the possibilty the gun was fake, Simioni hedged his bets.
"I've heard reports of that ... I haven't been informed that that has been definitively conclusive."
Two days after the shooting, ASIRT's executive director Clifton Purvis confirmed details of the type of weapon the woman had in her possesion before she was shot.
It also marked the first time the woman was officially identified as Bernadette Auger.
Purvis outlined the series events that took place on January 16th.
Police were first called to the scene at about 2:07 p.m. When two officers arrived, they confronted Bernadette Auger, who appeared to have a handgun.
Auger went back inside the building and the officers remained outside, Purvis said.
The woman remained in the apartment building for up to 20 minutes and then re-emerged for a second confrontation with police, he said.
By that time the two officers had called for backup. Several other officers, including the police canine unit, had arrived.
"After being confronted by police, police fired their weapons two times.
"Ms. Auger was shot twice. She was struck on two occasions as a result of being shot by two separate members of the Edmonton Police Service."
Both shots were fired at the same time, he said, at about 2:35 p.m.
"The item itself that she was holding, the replica handgun, had been altered. It had been painted dark so that it was more similar to the functioning handgun that it was a copy of."
Purvis said the weapon was a spring-powered air pistol intended to shoot small plastic BBs. The Airsoft pistol can be purchased for about 25 dollars.
Normally manufactured in clear plastic, Purvis said someone had painted it to make it look like a Sig Sauer P230, a .32 calibre handgun.
Sig Sauer, the North American representative of Swiss/German manufacturing firm Swiss Arms AG, supplies guns to one-third of all U.S police forces. The actual weapon seized at the scene is pictured at right.
"I can tell you that Ms. Auger was holding what appeared to be a black handgun. You can draw your own conclusions as to whether or not they look the same," Purvis challenged media.
"That item was seized from the scene. It has been examined and it is not a functioning firearm. Rather, it is what can be best described as a replica of a small Sig handgun," he added.
Purvis added that the investigation will continue to determine whether the officers' actions were appropriate.
"One of the things we are considering in the course of this and any other ASIRT investigation is were the actions of the police justified in all of the circumstances.
"One of the circumstances that we'll consider is were they reasonable in their belief that this was a functioning handgun. And so to examine the handgun and how it appeared and how it appeared to others is critical."
Purvis refused to identify the officers who fired the shots and wouldn't say if they were among the first officers to arrive on the scene. He did note the officers did not arrive together.
One officer had 13 years experience while the other had 18 months, he said.
Purvis said another officer was bitten on the leg by a police dog almost immediately after the shots were fired. That officer was treated for bite-related injuries and is doing fine, he said.
An autopsy report, to confirm the woman's identity and determine her cause of death, was scheduled to have been completed January 18th.
The last Edmonton police-involved death took place on May 10th, 2009 when 36-year-old Shawn Michael Price was shot by officers in front of an apartment building at 10207 107 Avenue.
The Edmonton Police Service website entry for Bernadette Auger can be seen here.
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