Brother questions shooting

The family of a Penticton man who was shot and killed by police wants there to be a closer look at how individuals going through a mental health crisis are treated by RCMP.

Seth Murray said he was notified that his brother, 33-year-old Mathew Murray, had been killed on Tuesday afternoon. Seth's girlfriend gave him the news after driving past the very public scene on Government Street.

Seth said he first heard reports of the shooting through social media, and when he was told it was his family member that was shot, he rushed over to the crime scene.

RCMP had been called to the area after multiple 911 calls. They reportedly found a man wielding a knife and acting erratically, and an officer shot the man using his duty pistol after an interaction that included the officer being wounded.

Police directed Seth to the hospital, where he then got confirmation his brother was dead.

"My issue with the whole thing is, I mean, we have so many problems in this town that ... you hear a knife wielding person walking up the street waving a knife around, you're automatically going to assume this person's on drugs," Seth said.

"My brother, he looks tall, and when he's wearing a baggy shirt, he may look imposing, but I'm waiting for the coroner report right now to find out if he was even 100 pounds."

Seth said his brother was not one to use drugs or get in trouble with police, referring to him as more of a 'recluse.'

He is currently awaiting autopsy results from the coroner to confirm whether or not drugs had been in his system.

"When I heard he was wandering around town waving a knife, that is 100 per cent out of character for his nature," Seth added.

He described his brother as someone who was quiet, enjoyed video games and had a small group of friends that he's had for the past 20-plus years.

B.C.’s police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, has been called in to investigate the fatal shooting. They confirmed to Castanet that next of kin had been notified of the death, but given the open investigation they had no further information to share.

Seth hopes the investigation will make clear why avenues other than shooting his brother, who he believes was suffering from mental health issues, were not explored.

"How come a police officer, who is fully trained, can't deal with a person who's literally 100 pounds whether or not he's having a mental breakdown?" he added. "Don't they have tasers, or martial arts [training], things like that, where they could have probably changed the outcome of this scenario?"

"I want to know if the police had enough time to assess this before, could they have done it differently where they brought a social worker up? Because I think that's what we're supposed to be doing when we have teams like that, as far as to understand."

RCMP have previously stated that since the investigation is ongoing, they will not be commenting further.

Seth said he wondered if police took enough time to assess the situation before firing the gun.

Penticton recently started their Integrated Crisis Response Team, which sees trained psychiatric nurses paired with RCMP officers in order to better respond to issues that involve mental health crises, and connect individuals to local services.

"Someone who's who's trained in that kind of stuff, could have maybe changed the scenario or the outcome," Seth said.

He has connected with IIO, who told him as much information as they could at the time.

"I know he attacked the police officer. I know the officer was harmed. But how in your training, how did you get so close that he can actually attack you?" Seth said.

"I want to show all the underlying issues that are going on with the town. I mean, if we had better knowledge or resources, it could have definitely, probably gone a different way."

Seth said he's currently waiting on more information from RCMP. Interior Health also shared comment with Castanet, as they are a partner in the Integrated Crisis Response Team Seth referred to.

IH said that this was a "tragic situation" and declined further comment due to the active investigation.

The investigation is expected to take significant time.