• Black Nova Scotia
  • Economy
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Health
    • COVID
  • Investigation
  • Journalism
  • Labour
  • Policing
  • Politics
    • City Hall
    • Elections
    • Province House
  • Profiles
  • Transit
  • Women
  • Morning File
  • Commentary
  • PRICED OUT
  • @Tim_Bousquet
  • Log In

Halifax Examiner

An independent, adversarial news site in Halifax, NS

  • Home
  • About
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Commenting policy
  • Archives
  • Contact us
  • Subscribe
    • Gift Subscriptions
  • Donate
  • Swag
  • Receipts
  • Manage your account: update card / change level / cancel
You are here: Home / Featured / Family of Eastern Passage man shot dead by police says he was holding a pellet gun

Family of Eastern Passage man shot dead by police says he was holding a pellet gun

July 13, 2020 By Zane Woodford 1 Comment

Kevin and Richard Wheeler. Photo from Facebook

The family of Richard Kenneth Wheeler, the 60-year-old man shot to death by the RCMP in Eastern Passage last week, is pushing back against the police narrative of the killing — saying he was holding a pellet gun and it wasn’t pointed at officers.

Wheeler’s obituary, posted Sunday, said he “loved being with his friends and family.”

He would be the first one to lend a helping hand and would give the shirt off of his back for anyone in need. He was always up for a good time and made himself well known anywhere he went, from the race tracks to the rinks, he was there with a timmies in hand supporting his children.  He loved hunting, fishing, long drives, animals and gardening to name a few.  There wasn’t another person like Richard.

RCMP officers shot Wheeler outside his mother’s home on Howard Avenue in Eastern Passage early Thursday evening, July 9.

In a news release, the Mounties said they were responding to “a call of an armed man who was uttering threats.”

“When police arrived, they located the man, a 60-year-old from Eastern Passage, armed with a handgun outside the residence. The man did not respond to officers’ directions,” the release said.

“After a short time, the man raised his handgun towards the responding officers. Responding officers discharged their firearms.”

Wheeler’s son and daughter, Kevin and Katelyn, both posted on Facebook on Sunday:

Thank you everyone for your love and support during this very difficult time for our family. To say this has been extremely overwhelming and shocking would be an understatement. We would just like to clarify a few misleading and inaccurate statements that have been released by the media about our Dad.

Dad was sitting outside on the steps with a pellet gun in his hand pointing it towards the ground, not the police. The police did not try to negotiate with him at all or use any other avenues to resolve the situation. They asked him to “drop the gun” then immediately shot him 4 times.

We have yet to receive a full police report as it is now a murder investigation. Our Dad was not trying to harm anyone and had no intentions of dying that horrific day.

Nova Scotia’s Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) is investigating the shooting. Director Felix Cacchione said in an interview with the Halifax Examiner that he doesn’t know what kind of weapon Wheeler was holding.

“The investigation just started, so I really don’t have a lot of information and I won’t have a lot of information until I meet with the investigator who’s been busy trying to get statements from various witnesses,” Cacchione said.

Cacchione did not characterize the investigation as a “murder investigation.”

“We’re investigating a fatality caused at the hands of a police officer or police officers,” he said.

“I don’t know how many were on scene or how many weapons, if there was more than one weapon discharged, I don’t have that information.”

As for communication with the family, Cacchione said he’d have no contact with them till the investigation is complete, but SIRT’s investigator may interview them.

SIRT has three months after the conclusion of its investigation to file a public summary report.

Kevin Wheeler did not respond to a Facebook message requesting an interview. RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Jennifer Clarke did not respond to a voicemail requesting an interview.


The Halifax Examiner is an advertising-free, subscriber-supported news site. Your subscription makes this work possible; please subscribe.

Some people have asked that we additionally allow for one-time donations from readers, so we’ve created that opportunity, via the PayPal button below. We also accept e-transfers, cheques, and donations with your credit card; please contact iris “at” halifaxexaminer “dot” ca for details.

Thank you!




Filed Under: Featured, News Tagged With: Felix Cacchione, RCMP Cpl. Jennifer Clarke, RCMP shooting Eastern Passage, Richard Kenneth Wheeler, Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT)

About Zane Woodford

Zane Woodford covers municipal politics for the Halifax Examiner. Email: [email protected]; Twitter

Comments

  1. michael marshall says

    July 14, 2020 at 4:52 am

    Today’s pellet guns are not the children’s pellet guns from the 1950s : I have publicly complained that Bass Pro Shop flyers are currently advertising a pellet gun with 1200 fps velocity equal to a .22 rifle firing ‘shorts’!!

    Other pellet guns are exact copies of famous pistols and sub machine guns. Hold those in bad light and why wouldn’t cops think they are real?

    I agree that most times the police should back off rather than shoot.

    But the fact remains, it is deadly stupid to hold any gun-like item near a house – please gun-owners, keep it in its case until you reach a firing range or hunting grounds….

    Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

PRICED OUT

A collage of various housing options in HRM, including co-ops, apartment buildings, shelters, and tents
PRICED OUT is the Examiner’s investigative reporting project focused on the housing crisis.

You can learn about the project, including how we’re asking readers to direct our reporting, our published articles, and what we’re working on, on the PRICED OUT homepage.

2020 mass murders

Nine images illustrating the locations, maps, and memorials of the mass shootings

All of the Halifax Examiner’s reporting on the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020, and recent articles on the Mass Casualty Commission and newly-released documents.

Updated regularly.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Two young white women, one with dark hair and one blonde, smile at the camera on a sunny spring day.

Episode 79 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne, is published.

Grace McNutt and Linnea Swinimer are the Minute Women, two Haligonians who host a podcast of the same name about Canadian history as seen through a lens of Heritage Minutes (minutewomenpodcast.ca). In a lively celebration of the show’s second birthday, they stop by to reveal how curling brought them together in podcast — and now BFF — form, their favourite Minutes, that time they thought Jean Chretien was dead, and the impact their show has had. Plus music from brand-new ECMA winners Hillsburn and Zamani.

Listen to the episode here.

Check out some of the past episodes here.

Subscribe to the podcast to get episodes automatically downloaded to your device — there’s a great instructional article here. Email Suzanne for help.

You can reach Tara here.

Sign up for email notification

Sign up to receive email notification when we publish new Morning Files and Weekend Files. Note: signing up for this email is NOT the same as subscribing to the Halifax Examiner. To subscribe, click here.

Recent posts

  • Pastel QAnon: How extremist groups recruit women May 18, 2022
  • Union leader pleads for better wages for paramedics May 18, 2022
  • Halifax council round-up: Reprieve for Rankin, development study next to Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes, and more May 18, 2022
  • Halifax council hikes taxi fares 16% May 17, 2022
  • RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather is being investigated concerning decision to not alert the public about the mass murderer’s fake police car May 17, 2022

Commenting policy

All comments on the Halifax Examiner are subject to our commenting policy. You can view our commenting policy here.

Copyright © 2022