Canadian Police Constable Fatally Stabbed While Responding to Call
By Officer.com News
BRITISH COLUMBIA, Canada -- A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer was stabbed to death Tuesday while responding to a call about a tent in a local park.
Constable Shaelyn Yang worked in the mental health and homelessness outreach team when the incident occurred, according to CBC-TV.
The 31-year-old officer had been a member of the RCMP for just three years.
"She was a loving wife, a sister, and a daughter," Dwayne McDonald, the deputy commissioner of the British Columbia force, said. "Those she worked with before joining the RCMP and her police colleagues described Const. Yang as a kind and compassionate person, which makes her death even more difficult to accept ... Her loss is immeasurable."
Yang was accompanying a member of the city's parks department to the call about the tent located in Broadview Park when the altercation occurred.
B.C. Emergency Health Services said it received a call at 11:17 a.m. Tuesday about a police incident at Canada Way and Curle Avenue in Burnaby. BCEHS said a total of eight ground ambulances responded and paramedics cared for and transported two patients to hospital in critical condition, including Yang who was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The head of the Burnaby RCMP detachment remembered Yang. "Standing here today, speaking about the impact, the line of duty deaths of one of our members is probably the most difficult thing I've had to do in my entire career," Chief Superintendent Graham De La Gorgendiere told reporters. "She was compassionate and caring and she brought those skills every day to her job working with the community's most vulnerable, including those with mental health issues."