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More than 100 protesters dressed in white staged a rally outside the Edmonton Police Service’s northeast headquarters on Saturday to demand justice for a man shot and killed by an officer earlier this summer.
“Justice for us is everybody involved to be held accountable,” said Dini Arkangelo, the older brother of Mathios Arkangelo, who died June 29 in a shooting that is under investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT). “It needs to get addressed so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
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The video in question is surveillance footage of the altercation, which shows a single officer confronting Mathios Arkangelo, 28, on a northeast Edmonton residential street from more than a vehicle length away.
Arkangelo reaches into his pocket and pulls out a utility knife that he holds out with both arms extended. His family has said he used the knife for work, and was probably trying to show the officer he wasn’t hiding a weapon.
Dini Arkangelo said his family believes the officer’s lethal force was unnecessary in the situation, and they are similarly incensed at video that seems to show other officers arriving and handcuffing Arkangelo on the ground before applying first aid.
“Anger, anger and anger,” rally co-organizer Haruun Ali said in describing community reaction to the footage. “The reason why this hits home is because the violence happened here. It’s gaining momentum and a lot more people are tuning in.”
As a fundraiser, white T-shirts were sold at the rally bearing the words “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” — words that were also regularly chanted by the crowd at the event.
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Questions remain about the events leading up to the June 29 incident. ASIRT’s first news release on the matter said police were called after reports of a single vehicle rollover on Anthony Henday Drive, and that the driver was later seen walking in the nearby community of Fraser.
The day after the shooting, Edmonton police said the crash involved an impaired driver, though ASIRT did not make that claim in its news release.
Police Chief Dale McFee has called for patience while the investigation plays out, and asked the public to trust the ASIRT process. The unidentified officer who shot Arkangelo returned to duty in August after completing a “reintegration program” — something that has also angered Arkangelo’s family.
“Less than two months later he’s back on the roads with a gun and a badge. I think we should be a little concerned,” Dini Arkangelo said.
Ali, a former city council candidate who often speaks out against police use of force, promised more rallies in the months ahead until the officer is charged.
In the meantime, Dini Arkangelo said he just misses his little brother, who was father to a seven-year-old son.
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“He was very kind. He really enjoyed music. He’s been doing music since he was 14 and he continued to get better and better. He loved working out and being fit. He liked to look good and dress nice,” he said of Mathios.
“We always talked about business and business ideas. He had grand ambitions. He always wanted to do something good, and that’s what I loved about him.”
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