Charges have been laid against a man in connection with a stabbing at the headquarters of Alberta’s police investigative unit in Calgary Tuesday.
Police say the attack happened in an interview room at the Calgary offices of the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT). Police from Edmonton were asked to go to Calgary to take control of the investigation, since the original ASIRT investigation involved police in the Calgary area.
A man, who had been shot by police in November, while being interviewed, suddenly turned on an officer, allegedly stabbing him almost fatally before other investigators rushed in and wrestled him away.
One of those would-be rescuers, a Calgary police officer, was slashed in the hand as he tried to help his fallen colleague.
Lee Christopher Monrose, 29, has been charged with 11 criminal offences in relation to Tuesday’s incident, including attempted murder.
“The investigation revealed that Mr. Monrose appeared at the Calgary ASIRT office unannounced and asked to speak to the investigator,” said Staff Sgt. Lorne Pubantz of the Edmonton Police Service. “While speaking with the investigator, an altercation occurred, other members within the ASIRT office then heard the altercation and went in to see that a fight had occurred.”
The officer involved in the struggle, a plainclothes RCMP investigator working for the team, was stabbed three times and rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries. He remains in a Calgary hospital in serious condition but is able to speak with police investigators. “Any police officer, when they go to work, hopes to go home to their family at the end of the day,” Pubantz said.
Clifton Purvis, who heads the investigative unit, identified the RCMP officer as Sgt. Andrew Johnson, 53, who has been with the force for 25 years.
Monrose’s next court appearance is scheduled for June 4.
with files from the canadian press
