Homeless Man Shot by Vancouver Police

Updated: Mon Mar. 23 2009, CTV News, ctvbc.ca

Police have named the homeless man shot dead on Friday by two Vancouver police officers.

He is 58-year-old Michael Vann Hubbard, who had previously lived at the Salvation Army's Belkin House shelter on Homer St.

An autopsy carried out on Vann Hubbard over the weekend revealed that he died from a single gun shot.

The incident started at about 10:30 a.m. on Friday, when police got a call about two men breaking into cars on Granville Street. A few blocks away, at Homer St. near Dunsmuir St., they caught up with two men who they believed were the suspects. Two officers approached, with guns drawn.

Vann Hubbard had an X-Acto knife, which police say he waved at the officers.

Vancouver Police Const. Jana McGuinness said he did not comply with orders to drop the knife, and moved towards the officers and was shot.

More than 50 people witnessed the shooting.

Investigators are also reviewing surveillance video of the incident obtained from two separate sources. They revealed on Sunday that the officers involved did not have Tasers.

Some witnesses say there was no need for police to pull the trigger, and one man claims to have shot the entire episode with his mobile phone video.

Witness Adam Smolcic claimed the video was later erased by another officer.

"He asked me if I was filming. I said 'yeah.' he asked to see my phone... he had my phone for about four or five minutes, [and] when he returned my phone he told me to get lost," said Smolcic. "I walked back up Homer Street there and I checked in my phone and there was no video."

Smolcic was spending Monday with technicians to see if the video could be retrieved from his phone.

With a report by CTV British Columbia's Shannon Paterson.