A homeless man shot and killed by a Vancouver police officer last week was not the suspect they had been looking for in connection with the break-in of a van nearby, police said yesterday.
Michael Vann Hubbard, 58, was shot on a downtown street after two female officers approached him and asked to search his bag, which looked like one that had just been stolen from a vehicle.
Police said the man pulled out a utility knife and when he refused to drop the weapon, he was shot.
“The bag in (Hubbard’s) possession, although similar, was not the bag stolen from the vehicle in the reported theft,” said Casey Vinet, a constable with the Abbotsford Police Department, which is investigating the shooting.
Investigators are reviewing surveillance video from two sources, and the footage will eventually be released to the media, Vinet said.
Police also expect to interview Adam Smolcic, who claims to have recorded the shooting on his cellphone before an officer took it from him and allegedly erased the video.
On Monday, Smolcic took the phone to a forensics expert to see if the video can be retrieved.
Civilian panel
David Eby, a Vancouver lawyer with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, says he doesn’t think police should investigate themselves and that a civilian panel should be investigating the shooting.
