No charges in fatal Vancouver police shooting caught on tape: Crown

VANCOUVER – A special prosecutor has decided the officers involved in a fatal police shooting in Vancouver that was captured on a cellphone video will not be charged.

Paul Boyd was shot multiple times after police responded to a 911 call about a disturbance in August 2007.

Const. Lee Chipperfield, the officer who shot Boyd, told a coroner’s inquest he believed Boyd was armed with a bicycle chain and possibly wearing body armour when he fired the fatal shot.

But the case was handed over to an outside police force after a previously unreleased video surfaced, showing Boyd crawling on the street after the initial shots and indicating he was no longer holding the chain when the ninth and final shot was fired.

The criminal justice branch says in a news release that special prosecutor Mark Jette (jet-ay) determined Chipperfield would be able to argue self-defence, meaning there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction.

The statement notes the video does not show the initial confrontation or the first six gunshots, and the camera’s view of Boyd is blocked by a car at the moment of the final shot.