"WINNIPEG — Two Winnipeg police officers face several charges — including attempted murder and fabricating evidence — after a police chase that ended in a shooting in July 2007.

The pair — both six-year veterans whose names will be released Friday morning — were arrested Thursday after an extensive internal investigation by the professional standards unit.

Kristofer Shawn Fournier, 20, escaped serious injury after being hit in the buttocks by one of several police bullets fired at him in July 2007.

City police said in a news release Thursday that two officers had responded to an armed robbery July 16 at a Winnipeg 7-Eleven store. Fournier was spotted driving a stolen SUV in the area.

The police cruiser collided with the vehicle being driven by Fournier, then a foot chase ensued.

Fournier ran from the scene, only to be hit with gunfire in his lower body.

He was treated in hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. A subsequent investigation concluded Fournier was not involved in the robbery, police said Thursday.

A police investigation was forwarded to Manitoba Justice, which retained an external Crown Attorney to review the investigative report.

Fournier’s former lawyer, Chris Sigurdson, said his client and at least one of the officers apparently knew each other from an incident just days earlier, in which police tried to pull Fournier over, but he sped away and escaped.

“The first thing he told me was that he heard one of the officers yelling, ‘Shoot him, shoot him.’ Then he heard the shots,” Sigurdson said Thursday.

“He claimed they were angry at him for what happened earlier.”

According to a police report given to Fournier’s former lawyer, two officers split up while chasing Fournier when one of them slipped and injured his ankle. Fournier had briefly disappeared, only to “spring out of the bushes” and try to wrestle the downed officer’s gun away, the report said.

“I thought at the time (the police statement) was clearly ridiculous,” said Sigurdson, who believes the report now forms the basis of the fabricating-evidence charges.

“I keep hearing in media reports about how this shooting came after a confrontation. There were no damn confrontation. He wasn’t aggressive towards police in any way,” he said.

Police charged Fournier with several offences, which were later dropped by the Crown, including assaulting a police officer and attempting to disarm.

He was never implicated in the 7-Eleven robbery, and police said Thursday he was not involved in the incident.

Fournier eventually pleaded guilty to having a quantity of cocaine and ecstasy on him that night. He is now believed to be living with family in Alberta.

Police agreed to begin an internal investigation, only after Fournier’s lawyer raised concerns about the circumstances of the shooting in the media.

One officer will be charged with: attempted murder; fabricating evidence; aiding and abetting the dangerous operation of a motor vehicle; discharging a firearm with intent to wound; aggravated assault with a weapon; criminal negligence causing bodily harm; and careless use of a weapon.

The other officer will be charged with: dangerous operation of a motor vehicle; fabricating evidence; aiding and abetting discharge of a firearm with intent to wound; and aiding and abetting aggravated assault with a weapon.

The officers make their first court appearance June 1. The officers have been placed on administrative leave.

This case is the third in the past 14 months in which Winnipeg police officers have been at the centre of scandal.

Const. Graeme Beattie and Const. Paul Clark were charged last month with fabricating evidence, obstructing justice and public mischief in the arrest of a man on drug-related charges, which were later stayed by the Crown.

Const. Peter O’Kane and Const. Jess Zebrun — the stepson of former chief Jack Ewatski — were charged in January 2008 with perjury and being unlawfully in a house after allegedly lying to a provincial magistrate in order to obtain a drug-search warrant. Charges against the accused were thrown out as a result."

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