Police watchdog questions Crown transparency in decision not to charge B.C. Mountie for 2018 shooting

The director of B.C.'s Independent Investigations Office says Crown prosecutors are not telling the public the full story in their decision not to charge an RCMP officer who shot a suspected drunk driver four times.

On Friday, the B.C. Prosecution Service announced that it would not approve charges against the Mountie who seriously injured the suspect in Grand Forks — in B.C.'s West Kootenay region, near the Canada-U.S. border — on May 10, 2018. Prosecutors also released a nine-page "clear statement" outlining the case.

The statement says that if the case went to court, the officer involved would likely argue that he fired out of self-preservation, and Crown felt the evidence was too inconclusive to rule out that possibility.

But in an unusual response to the Crown's decision, Ron MacDonald, the IIO's chief civil director, questioned how the evidence was framed.

"The clear statement does not transparently outline for the public important evidence the IIO presented on these issues," MacDonald said.

At issue is a "shaky and out of focus" cellphone video taken by a witness to the shooting, who was standing about 20 metres away from the action, according to the clear statement. 

Neither the officers involved in the shooting nor the suspect have been named by Crown or the IIO.

The prosecution's clear statement explains that at the time of the shooting, the suspect had been fleeing police after he was pulled over because of reports of erratic driving.

Three officers then used their vehicles to box in his pickup truck in an attempt to stop him, but he repeatedly rammed them with his truck. 

A fourth officer arrived and parked his vehicle nose-to-nose with the suspect's truck, then got out of his cruiser to make the arrest, the statement says.

That's when the suspect began accelerating, and the officer started shooting.

"The Crown is unable to rule out the possibility that the SO [subject officer] was at risk of being hit by his own vehicle and suffering grievous bodily harm as a result, or that the SO reasonably believed such a risk existed," the clear statement says.

What's still unknown, the Crown says, is where exactly the officer was standing when the suspect began accelerating.

That's where the witness video comes in.