IIO will not recommend charges against Kamloops RCMP officer

“I figured worst case scenario if something was going to happen or whatever she wasn’t going to shoot somebody that was running away from her,” the suspect told IIO investigators.

So he kicked off his shoes, ran and jumped down a steep embankment. As he landed, he injured his heel and was taken into custody.

The subject officer said in the report that she was responding to the call about a break-in at a recreational vehicle. She was given a description of the suspect, and at one point saw him walking up a hill beside the road.

She lost sight of him, but was directed by her supervisor toward the Canadian Tire — a police service dog had tracked the suspect in that direction. While she was driving there, she was given the probable identity of the suspect, and ran checks on her in-car computer.

“I confirmed the warrant for arrest, as well as saw that he was flagged as violent and had conditions not to possess weapons on CPIC (Canadian Police Information Centre),” she told investigators.

However, there were inconsistencies in that statement. IIO investigators said there was no flag for violence on the suspect’s CPIC record and CPIC data shows the officer did not run a check on the suspect until after he had been arrested.

The officer drove slowly behind the Canadian Tire and saw a man matching the suspect’s description. She said he was hiding on the other side of the wooden pallets. He wasn’t looking in her direction, so she was able to approach slowly and quietly.

She rolled down her car window and yelled at the suspect “Stop right there!” She got out of her vehicle, told the suspect he was under arrest and asked him to get on the ground. She said he didn’t respond to her commands.

“I could see him moving his hands towards his socks, lower portion of his pants, he would crouch down, stand back up and look around,” the officer told IIOBC investigators. “I was there alone, with a male who had just run from a (police service dog) for approximately 30 minutes, and the male wasn’t listening to my commands.”

She went on to say that during his run from police, he demonstrated he was physically fit, and she was worried he would be able to overpower her. If he did, she said, he would have access to pepper spray, handcuffs, a baton and her pistol among other weapons.

She told investigators her risk assessment was high, and she was worried he was either reaching for a weapon or looking for a weapon. She drew her firearm and gave commands, but again the suspect didn’t comply.

When the suspect took off again, the officer holstered her pistol and ran after him, but he jumped off a four-foot retaining wall.

After that he fell to the ground clutching at his ankle. Another officer arrived and the suspect was arrested.

“Some details in (the officer’s) statement appear to be incorrect, and that is understandable, given that the statement was written nearly three months after the event rather than having been prepared when the officer’s recollection was fresh,” the report states.

The IIO chief civilian director, Ron MacDonald, says in the report that to rise to the level of a criminal act, the officer’s actions must fall outside of a range of responses that could be considered reasonable.

He went on to say the officer was relatively inexperienced, was acting out of a sense of duty, and was faced with a fluid, quickly developing situation.

“While there were other options that might have been more appropriate, once she had decided to act as she did it was not entirely unreasonable for her to conclude that she was justified in drawing and pointing her pistol at (the suspect),” MacDonald concluded.

The matter will not be referred to Crown counsel for consideration of charges.

Read the full report here.

by Ashley Legassic

IIO will not recommend charges against Kamloops RCMP officer

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