Inquest into 2020 Lytton RCMP shooting begins Tuesday

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A coroner’s inquest begins Tuesday into the police shooting of a community activist in Lytton three years ago.

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Barry Shantz died Jan. 13, 2020, after his wife was reported to be “playing with a gun” in the house and appeared suicidal. Shantz was later shot and killed by RCMP officers on his patio while holding a shotgun.

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A report by the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. later that year cleared the officers, who were determined to be at risk of “grievous bodily harm or death.”

During a six-hour standoff, the 63-year-old Shantz had repeatedly warned he would come out of the house with the gun and wanted police to fire “six shots in my body.”

Friends said Shantz had well-established mental-health issues after serving 15 years in a U.S. jail, and many were upset with how police handled the distress call.

After being deported back to Canada, Shantz was one of the founders of the B.C.-Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors, and spent years as an advocate for the homeless and drug users in the Fraser Valley. Among other causes, he got Abbotsford to change its bylaws to allow people to sleep overnight in city parks if they had nowhere else to go.

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The inquest by the B.C. Coroners Service begins Tuesday, July 4, in Burnaby Coroners Court. The jury cannot assign legal blame but can establish the facts around the incident and make recommendations to prevent deaths under similar circumstances in future.

Coroner Lyn Blenkinsop will preside.

— With files from Glenda Luymes

jruttle@postmedia.com

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