Calgary Police Service apologizes after Marlborough Park charges stayed

EXTENDED: Calgary police apologize after charges stayed CPS Chief Constable Mark Neufeld offered an apology after charges connected with a Calgary homicide were stayed by Crown prosecutors.

A week after a man was shot to death in a northeast Calgary parking lot and two teen brothers were arrested, police say 'new evidence' has led to those charges being stayed.

The Calgary Police Service released this statement in response to the development, apologizing to those charged, their family and the community:

Earlier today, all charges laid against two brothers, aged 14 and 18, in relation to the homicide of 23-year-old Rami Hajj Ali were stayed after new evidence came to light.

Following the shooting that occurred last week, police responded to the area and received valuable information from witnesses to the incident, which turned our attention upon a particular vehicle that was leaving the area of the shooting.

This was the beginning of a complex chain of events that led to the arrest of numerous individuals, the execution of warrants on two homes and two vehicles, and ultimately a case was made that supported the charges. In coming to a decision to lay those charges, homicide investigators were acting upon the information and evidence that was available to them up to that point.

Since then, new evidence has come to light that caused our investigators to believe that the two brothers were not responsible for the shooting. As soon as investigators received this contradictory evidence and were sufficiently satisfied with its reliability, they notified the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, which led to the charges being stayed today in court.

We recognize that these charges will have impacted these two young men, their family and the community in very significant ways, and for that we apologize unreservedly.

As your police service, we have a responsibility to ensure public safety in Calgary and to hold offenders to account – most particularly in dangerous and deadly situations such as this one. At the same time, we have a responsibility to ensure that no one enters the criminal justice system who should not rightly be there.

We have reached out to the community and family of these brothers to offer supports and provide additional answers.

Our Service will arrange for an independent review, which will examine the circumstances that led to the arrest and charges.

As this investigation remains ongoing, we are committed to bringing justice to the family of the deceased, as well as those injured in this brazen shooting.