2021 murder case closed because police killed suspect later that day

ASIRT is investigating the fatal shooting of a man during a stolen vehicle chase (CTV News Edmonton/Matt Marshall).

Edmonton police have closed the file on a 2021 homicide without charges, because the man they say did it is dead.

Sheldon Johnson, 31, was found dead from a gunshot inside a home near 120 Avenue and 93 Street in Edmonton in the early morning hours of New Year’s Eve 2021.

Police said the 33-year-old man they believe was responsible for the killing was shot and killed by police later that day. Because of this, no charges will be laid in Johnson’s killing and his case has been closed.

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The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) investigated the police shooting of Johnson’s suspected killer and released its report Thursday.

In it, ASIRT said Edmonton officers found the 33-year-old man driving a recently stolen Chrysler 300. When police started following, officers said the man sped up on the icy road.

Additional units were called and a police chase later ensued after officers saw the man lose control and hit a parked car. ASIRT said the officers believed the man to be a “significant public danger,” despite not knowing at the time that he was a suspect in a gang-related killing from earlier that day.

During the chase, ASIRT said the man lost control of the car again, hitting a snowbank and getting stuck in a residential area near 92 Street and 112 Avenue.

The man and several responding officers exited their vehicles when ASIRT said the man fired a sawed-off shotgun at one of the police cruisers.

Four officers then shot the man, ASIRT said, hitting him several times and killing him. No officers were hurt.

ASIRT reported that all officers acted reasonably and lawfully in the shooting, due the man’s “resolute intent to escape apprehension even if it put others at serious risk of bodily harm or death.”

“The use of their firearms to shoot at (the man) was proportionate to the threat of death or grievous bodily harm that he reasonably posed to them, or their colleagues,” the report read.