Coroners' court to investigate shooting of stabbing suspect at Vancouver Canadian Tire

Coroners service looking into police shooting The BC Coroners Service will be investigating the fatal police shooting of a suspect in a Canadian Tire stabbing.

British Columbia's coroners service will be investigating the police-involved death of a suspect in a stabbing at a Vancouver Canadian Tire.

Daniel Peter Rintoul died in 2016 in a shooting outside the store near Grandview Highway and Rupert Street.

Police said he'd stabbed a clerk in the back and neck, opened the store's gun cabinets and tried to remove firearms. But he left the guns and walked out of the store holding a knife and bear spray, police allege.

They say he used those items in an effort to attack police, who'd been called in to deal with the incident.

They claim he also took a senior hostage, and at one point managed to stab a police officer "multiple times, including in the head and the abdomen."

Rintoul was shot nine times by police, and died at the scene.

The shooting has already been investigated by B.C.'s police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office.

The officers involved were cleared in that investigation, which included witness testimony from people who'd been at the store that day. Those witnesses told the IIO that they'd heard police shout at the 38-year-old suspect to drop his weapons and get down, but that the man started to spray mace at the officers.

Civilians said they saw officers used a Taser, which sent Rintoul to the ground, but that they were unable to get handcuffs on him or even get his arms under control.

Rintoul was a large man, weighing about 430 lbs., according to the IIO report.

It was as officers tried to arrest him that one was stabbed, the office said.

The watchdog said police still tried less lethal options first, including firing foam or wooden ARWEN rounds, but that investigators said the suspect "was still intent on taking aggressive actions."

The IIO report was released in 2019, with the office saying it took that long because some Vancouver police pushed back during the investigation. The IIO eventually had to go to B.C. Supreme Court to compel those officers to participate.

The public inquest into Rintoul's death will begin on Oct. 31 at the Burnaby Coroners' Court.

These investigations are mandatory for deaths that occur while a person was detained or in the custody of a peace officer, and are not meant to find fault.

Instead, these inquests seek to determine the facts around the death, including how it happened, and make recommendations, if appropriate, to prevent further deaths in similar circumstances.

They're also meant, the coroners service said, "to ensure public confidence that the circumstances surrounding the death of an individual will not be overlooked, concealed or ignored."

The inquest will be live streamed.