DAWSON CREEK — Anonymous, a loosely associated international network of activist and hacktivist entities, says it will use “vengeance if necessary” to seek justice for a man shot dead by police in Dawson Creek Thursday outside a public consultation meeting for the Site C dam.

The Independent Investigations Office of B.C., a police watchdog, said the man had his face covered when he was shot by an RCMP officer. It will not comment on whether he was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, widely used by Anonymous, which claims the victim was one of its own.

The refusal to comment comes despite a growing number of online reports and social media chatter linking the victim to the group.

A group called Operation Anon Down posted an Anonymous statement online Saturday calling for justice and vengeance, and posting a list of targets.

The group claimed the man was “the fourth Anon to be slain by security forces” in the past four years, listing deaths in Turkey, Egypt, Palestine and now B.C.

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“As in the past, Anonymous will not stand idly by while our own are cut down in mask,” said the statement. “We will most certainly avenge one of our own when they are cut down in the streets while protesting the earth wrecking environmental policies of the Canadian government.”

It continued to state that the first steps taken would be to identify the police officer and “thoroughly dox him” and release the information on the Internet. A dox is a search for an individual’s identifying information.

Other targets posted by the group included the RCMP’s national website, the local website of the Dawson Creek RCMP detachment, and a trio of RCMP Twitter accounts.

The RCMP national website and Dawson Creek detachment site were both down Sunday morning, and a Twitter post from Anonymous included an online reporting site showing the servers down.

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney’s office said it was monitoring the situation, and the Mounties did not respond to questions. The website of Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, was recently taken down by a cyberattack.

IIO spokeswoman Kellie Kilpatrick said investigators with the police watchdog were working with RCMP and the B.C. Coroners Service on the case.

When asked whether investigators were also working with CSIS, Kilpatrick said: “No comment.”

Operation Anon Down said in a later tweet that the person shot “was part of a First Nation Anonymous cell. RCMP knew this.”

Twitter user Jaymack9 tweeted on Thursday afternoon that an Anonymous splinter group was to attend the Site C meeting in Dawson Creek that night.

Earlier that day he tweeted: “Ready 4 our little showdown? Our people r going 2 b in place at that meeting in Dawson Creek.”

Jaymack9, who The Sun has been unable to contact, hasn’t posted anything since Thursday.

The IIO began investigating the shooting early Friday and later that day a video emerged that begins just after police shot the man, who the B.C. Coroners Service has yet to identify publicly.