Rodney Levi
On June 12, 2020, officers from Sunny Corner, Canada, shot and killed Rodney Levi, 48-year-old indigenous man. That day, he went to a friend’s barbecue, where he had a paranoid attack, as he was often visited by thoughts of suicide. After the situation started to get out of hand, his friend called the police.
Police arrived at the scene after reports that Levi pulled out a knife and began threatening himself and others. The police said that they were forced to use a taser against the man, as they could not agree with him, but this did not help. According to the officers, Levi became angry, and then began to approach with a knife in the direction of the police, which forced one of them to shoot him twice in the chest. Witnesses reported that the entire interaction between the officers and the man lasted no more than twenty minutes. Levi’s relatives believe he would have survived if he had been white.
In January 2021, the prosecutor’s office said that it saw no reason to bring charges against the police, as they defended themselves and others, and in March 2021, the media reported that the police refused to comment on this situation, as the investigation is still underway.