The mother of a man whose death prompted second-degree murder charges against a Calgary Police officer is speaking out.
“My son didn’t have to die the way he did,” says Lena Wildman, the mother of Levon Fox.
Fox was one of two men left dead after a police shooting in May 2023. Two second-degree murder charges were laid against Const. Craig Stothard following an Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) review into a slow-speed pursuit involving a stolen van along Memorial Drive.
“I would never wish it upon another mother to lose a child this way,” Wildman says.
On the day of the incident, police were alerted by a security guard of three people on private property. A van was stolen, hitting a building and barricade before heading to Memorial Drive. In the initial police release, CPS said officers unsuccessfully attempted to stop the vehicle a number of times before an officer shot at the van.
The second victim in the case was identified by media after the shooting as Wesley Davidson, 46. A third person in the van was uninjured and taken into custody.
Fox’s family has identified the third person as Fox’s brother Dennis Wildman, who the family said has been suffering mentally after living through the shooting.
Wildman tells CityNews the new charges have reopened old wounds.
“They weren’t a threat in any way except that they were in a moving vehicle,” she says.
The original police release makes no mention of whether the men inside the truck has weapons, or were believed to be carrying them.
“That moving vehicle was not racing down the street and hitting people, hitting pedestrians, hitting vehicles, no, that is not how the vehicle was moving.” Wildman says.
ASIRT deduced that evidence gathered provided reasonable grounds to charge Stothard with two counts of second-degree murder.
His lawyer, Don MacLeod, tells CityNews that the officer maintains his innocence and says the case will be vigorously defended in court.
Stothard is currently on leave from his position, according to CPS. He had 13 years of service with Calgary police at the time of the shooting.