NEWYORK: A Canadian man shot by a United States Customs and Border Protection agent at the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit has been charged by U.S. law enforcement. Man shot by U.S. customs officer would face charges in Canada.
The 22-year-old Windsor, Ont., man has been charged with using a dangerous weapon to forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate and/or interfere with a U.S. federal law enforcement officer performing official duties.
U.S. border guards at the Ambassador Bridge crossing between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit say the man stopped his car before the U.S. inspection booth and started walking towards border officers while “waving a handgun.”
The officers ordered him to drop the weapon, the agency said, but the man instead pointed the gun in the officers’ direction, prompting them to open fire.
In an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents say the man could be heard yelling, “just shoot me. I want to die. It’s a fake gun.”
The man was carrying a BB gun spray painted to look like a handgun, border agents said in the affidavit.
Minutes before the incident at the bridge, the man initially tried to engage Windsor police while waving a gun in a McDonald’s parking lot, Windsor Deputy Police Chief Vince Power said last week.
Police responded to a call about a man with a gun in the restaurant’s parking lot at 2:40 a.m. on Dec. 21. It was the man with the gun who called 911, Power said.
When police didn’t open fire, the man drove off in a black Ford Explorer, driving over a sidewalk and eventually onto the E.C. Row Expressway.
Windsor police notified neighbouring police departments, the Canada Border Services Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection about the man with a gun, Power said.
Should the man return to Canada, he will face weapons and dangerous driving charges on his return to Canada for events that occurred in Windsor prior to the shooting.
