Two RCMP officers were involved in a shooting against a violent suspect near this overpass in October, 2017. (Google Earth)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

IIO

Two Oceanside RCMP Mounties cleared after investigation into fatal arrest of suspect

Jul 6, 2020 | 4:31 PM

QUALICUM BEACH — Charges won’t be forwarded to Crown Counsel against two Oceanside RCMP officers who shot and killed a man during an arrest.

The report from the Independent Investigations Office released on Monday, July 6 said the officers “reasonably feared grievous bodily harm or death and resorted with justification to the use of lethal force to protect themselves and each other.”

Both officers discharged their weapons around 6:30 a.m. on October 12, 2017, killing a distraught man who was being handed to paramedics by a friend on the Inland Island Hwy. near Qualicum Beach.

The friend told investigators the man was hearing voices and had stabbed himself in the chest with a knife.

The man was apprehended just two days before under the Mental Health Act, allegedly shattered to his core by a breakup with his girlfriend.

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Paramedics called for RCMP assistance believing the man still had the knife. Investigators later found the knife was in his friends car but wasn’t on his person during an ensuing fight with officers.

The first officer told investigators they were in a “full-on fight” as soon as they tried to apprehend the man under the Mental Health Act.

He said the man wouldn’t stop resisting and withstood strikes to the head with a baton.

The officer admitted firing rounds into the ground when his partner yelled “He’s going for my gun.”

The gunshots had no effect.

The officer said the man looked at him blankly after hearing the warning gunfire.

Pepper spray fired at the man’s face did nothing but infuriate him. He jumped onto the officer who’d fired the warning shots and pinned him down in the ditch.

The officer claimed his gun was held in his left hand and he was trying to block vicious punches with his right.

The report said the officer “feared the man would soon be able to knock him out and get control of the pistol. At this point he felt ‘he had no other choice than to pull the trigger.'”

The officer claimed he fired once into the mans chest, while at the same time the second officer fired into the mans back.

The second officer said he “fired (his) gun at the male until the male stepped backward. The male stood there for a couple of seconds and then fell backwards.”

Evidence collected at the scene and discovered during the autopsy showed a discrepancy between the amount of shots officers claimed they’d fired and how many were actually unloaded.

The autopsy showed the man was shot five times, once from close range in the chest, once in the mid-abdomen and three times in the back. There was also a superficial wound at the man’s lower left waist.

The physical evidence showed the first officer actually shot six times, including three earlier warning shots. Two of the gunshots connected with a third causing the superficial wound at the waist.

The report from police watchdog investigators said the differing account from the officer “perhaps underlines how desperate his view of his situation had become by that point. It is recognized in this type of situation a shooter will often inaccurately recall the number of shots taken.”

Security footage from a residence roughly 600 metres from the scene of the fight provided audio evidence about how many times a gun went off during the incident.

The footage showed three single shots were fired over 90 seconds, understood to be the three warning shots fired by the first officer.

After 30 seconds of relative silence the surveillance video captured the sounds of two more gunshots, believed to be fired by the first officer into the man’s chest.

The report said given such a close range, three shots were actually fired but the first was muffled by the weight of the man pressing down on the officer.

Only a few seconds later a final group of three shots from the second officer were heard on the security footage.

“(The first officer) fired to protect himself, (the second officer) fired to protect his fellow officer,” the IIO report said.

Paramedics told investigators one of the officers looked like he had “the ever-loving hell beat out of him. He had goose eggs on his head, he was bleeding, he was in visible shock.”

“A lawful attempted detention…turned very quickly into a violent physical confrontation, to the point both (officers) reasonably feared grievous bodily harm or death and resorted with justification to the use of lethal force to protect themselves and each other.”

The IIO investigates all incidents province-wide where civilians are seriously injured or killed at the hands of police.

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