Man killed by police didn't lunge: girlfriend

The girlfriend of a machete-wielding man who watched from metres away as he was shot and killed by Winnipeg police says he didn't lunge at officers before they opened fire.

Giselle McKinnon says she watched as police officers encountered Eric Daniels, 28, at the intersection of Sargent Avenue and Arlington Street at about 10 p.m. on Saturday.

Police have said they were in the area looking for a suspect carrying a machete, who had been involved in a dispute with strangers outside a home about a block from the intersection only a few minutes earlier.

'They shot him, they took more shots and he's already down.' Giselle McKinnon

Police say they spotted Daniels and ordered him to drop the weapon, but shot him after he refused their requests and kept advancing toward them.

He was critically wounded and died in hospital shortly after.

McKinnon told CBC News on Tuesday that Daniels took two steps toward the officers with the machete in his hand. He dropped to the ground after the first bullet hit him in the chest, McKinnon said, andwas immediately struck by two more bullets.

"He was already down they fired another shot and the second shot became three meanwhile, he was already down," McKinnon said. "I seen everything. I was standing there. He didn't go after them."

Officers warned Daniels twice before pulling the trigger, she says, and added they should have asked him a third time before firing.

"I was in shock. They shot him, they took more shots and he's already down," she said.

McKinnon says she was upset that police took her into custody for questioningso she couldn't be at the hospital when Daniels died.

Shooting still being investigated

Police would only say on Tuesday that the shooting remains under investigation by the homicide squad. They couldn't comment on how many shots were fired by officers at the scene.

Because Daniels died as a result of police action,a public inquest is mandatory.

McKinnon says she tried, but failed, to defuse the situation, and that Daniels was only carrying the machete because he feared reprisal from gang members.

Daniels, a reported former member of the Native Syndicate street gang, was trying to leave gang life, McKinnon says.

On Monday, Daniels's younger brother, Dallas Courchene, said he harboured no resentment toward police for shooting his sibling, and wanted officers to know there would be no allegations of racism or wrongdoing from his family.

"There's a lot of stuff that they [police] put up with and for them to have to go through having to shoot someone forced to shoot someone and then live with it the rest of their lives and have other people blame them for it? No, I want to tell them right now that me and my family, we have no animosity, no hatred," Courchene said.

"There's nothing but forgiveness."