A Kamloops RCMP officer will not face criminal charges after an altercation in Lower Sahali last February left a man with permanent brain damage.
However, B.C.’s police watchdog will refer the officers involved to the RCMP’s professional standards department for a review.
Independent Investigations Office (IIO) Chief Civilian Director, Ronald MacDonald, says it is after a number of Kamloops RCMP officers “seemed unwilling to acknowledge the obvious discrepancies” in the statements they gave to to investigators.
Mounties were called to a disturbance at Columbia Street and Pemberton Terrace after a man who was reportedly yelling and screaming about “Satan” in the street had thrown a rock at a car and a snowball at an ambulance. He also reportedly tried to pull a deliver driver from their car.
In a report published Tuesday, MacDonald says the man was experiencing a psychotic episode after going without sleep for three days.
MacDonald says Mounties approached the man and shouted at him to get on the ground but that he took “several large steps” in the direction of the officer under investigation.
Police had to use pepper spray and a Taser twice to bring the man into custody, with MacDonald noting he fell backwards onto the ground and struck his head. It caused the man to suffer a serious head injury and a cardiac arrest.
This man was attended to by paramedics – who had to urge police to remove the handcuffs – for 30 minutes before a pulse was restored. The man was taken to hospital and diagnosed with renal failure and an anoxic brain injury.
“He now has permanent brain damage, which causes tremors in both hands,” MacDonald wrote.
That said, he noted the Mountie was justified in using the Taser as the man presented serious risks to officer and public safety.
“They could not simply permit him to walk away, and going ‘hands on’ on the circumstances involved a degree of risk to the officers,” he wrote. “The [Taser] does not generally cause serious harm (though it obviously has the potential to do so).”
“The injuries to [the man] in this case, while extremely unfortunate, were not injuries that [the officer under investigation] could reasonably have foreseen when he activated his [Taser].”
“Whether or not [the man’s] apprehension was handled in the best possible way, it cannot be said that [officer’s] use of force was excessive or unreasonable in the totality of the circumstances,” MacDonald added.
But he raised concerns about the “inaccurate accounts provided by witness officers” responding to the incident, which differed from the video evidence. MacDonald notes most of the officers said the man was “lunging” or “charging” toward an officer while video shows he was in fact backed up and was trying to pull the Taser wire out of his shirt.
“These inaccuracies are concerning, particularly because they all tend in one direction: that is, to augment the justifications available to [the officer under investigation] for his use of the [Taser] against [the man],” MacDonald wrote.
“It is also worth noting that, when re-interviewed, officers generally seemed unwilling to acknowledge the obvious discrepancies and to revise their accounts.”
MacDonald acknowledged that it’s not unusual for eyewitnesses – police and civilian – to be inaccurate in a “dynamic” incident and that significant leeway has to be given to a witness before concluding that they’re deliberately being untruthful to hinder an investigation.
“I do not consider that the evidence rises to a level where it provides reasonable grounds to believe that any of the Witness Officers may have committed an obstruction offence, and therefore the matter will not be referred to Crown counsel for consideration of charges against any officer,” MacDonald said.
“The matter will, however, be formally referred to the RCMP for a Professional Standards review.”
@iiobc is issuing a public report today regarding the February 2021 injury of a man while being apprehended by members of the Kamloops RCMP https://t.co/8DgplLIcH6
— IIOBC (@iiobc) September 20, 2022
