A video is getting shared online of Vancouver police taking down a syringe-wielding man with a bean bag shotgun outside the Vancouver Art Gallery.
The incident occurred Aug. 12, and the video was posted later that day.
The man was running around in traffic on Georgia Street in a distraught state, and confronted a number of people in the area, VPD spokesman Sgt. Randy Fincham said in a press conference Thursday.
“When police got there, they recognized that the man had a needle in his hand. He became confrontational and threatening towards the police officers,” Fincham said.
An officer shot the man in the leg with a bean bag and he dropped to the ground as officers moved in to arrest him.
Fincham said the man had been using drugs.
“This was not an emotionally-disturbed person. It wasn’t a mental illess; it was a drug-induced psychosis that caused the person’s behaviour,” Fincham said.
Fincham said bean bag shotguns are used by the police as a “less lethal projectile,” and estimated they’ve been used for at least 10 years by specially-trained VPD officers.
