By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

Nanaimo Mountie ‘let him go’ before fatal Trans-Canada Hwy. crash: report

Feb 5, 2019 | 10:30 AM

NANAIMO — A Nanaimo RCMP officer was cleared of any wrongdoing in a fatal highway crash which killed two people.

The Independent Investigations Office’s (IIO) report said the police officer did the right thing by not pursuing a fleeing suspect who drove the wrong way on the Trans-Canada Hwy on Jan. 14.

“(She) acted entirely appropriately to discontinue any attempt to stop the vehicle,” the report said.

The officer was following 31-year-old Kurtis Timothy after he failed to pull over during a traffic stop in Harewood near the highway. He was then spotted driving south in the northbound lane and narrowly missed a car before fatally crashing into an SUV.

Cliff Bishop, 54, was pronounced deceased at the scene.

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The IIO said Timothy was driving more than 170 kilometres per hour on the highway and drivers he passed reportedly heard the truck “revving up.”

The officer was in pursuit with her lights on for a short time when driving out of the Harewood neighbourhood, but turned them off when Timothy turned onto the highway.

“She switched off her emergency lights and radioed that the pick up was ‘trying to take off’ and that she was going to ‘let him go.’”

While Timothy was in the northbound lane, the officer followed in the correct lane at the posted speed of 90 kilometres per hour while keeping dispatch up-to-date on the situation.

By the time of the crash, the officer was more than a kilometre behind Timothy and she lost sight of him.

The IIO report said there are “strict limits” about when officers can pursue a suspect and this circumstance didn’t meet the threshold.

The report also didn’t speculate if it was the officers initial actions of trying to pull Timothy over which caused him to flee in the first place.

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