'Thought he was going to drive into us': RCMP cleared after driver injured fleeing police in Courtenay

A crew from the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. is seen in this file photo from the office's website. (iiobc.ca)

The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) of B.C. has cleared the RCMP of wrongdoing after a man was seriously injured while fleeing from police in Courtenay.

The incident occurred on Oct. 5, when the man was spotted in a stolen truck by police.

An RCMP officer reportedly saw the man parked in the stolen vehicle at a Tim Hortons parking lot around 12:45 p.m. When the driver noticed the officer, he drove the truck forward, ramming the police cruiser and rendering it inoperable.

He then reversed over a concrete divider and fled the scene.

Other police vehicles and an RCMP helicopter were called to track the man, though the IIO says police were careful not to pursue him to avoid creating a "dangerous chase."

At one point, two other unmarked police vehicles attempted to block a road that he was driving on, which he rammed and continued to drive through.

The IIO says the man was driving in seemingly random directions at high speed before he found himself in a cul-de-sac with no exit.

ATTEMPTED ESCAPE

A municipal garbage collection truck was in the cul-de-sac, and two RCMP cruisers parked beside the garbage truck in an attempt to trap the driver in the dead-end road.

An officer inside one of the two cruisers briefly exited her vehicle and was planning to lay down a spike belt across the road. As she was doing so, the truck sped forward and the officer returned to her car and buckled her seatbelt.

"I thought he was going to drive into us," the officer told the IIO.

The man did not, in fact, ram the RCMP vehicles. Instead, he drove onto a sidewalk and tried to squeeze between the garbage truck and a residential fence.

During the maneuver, the truck hit a large rock and rolled over. The driver was removed from the vehicle and was arrested before being taken to hospital where he was treated for serious internal injuries.

POLICE CLEARED

The IIO is called whenever a police-related incident results in serious harm or death, regardless of if there were allegations of wrongdoing.

The police watchdog says that while police actions indirectly led to the man being harmed, the direct cause of his injuries was his own "reckless" choice.

The IIO says that RCMP were careful not to engage in a vehicle chase earlier, and that they created their roadblock on a relatively quiet street, minimizing potential injuries to bystanders.

The IIO also credits the officers with not pointing their guns at the driver, which could have escalated the situation, and for not using their own cars as rams to disable the stolen truck.

"The police cannot be expected to utilize a tactic that eliminates all risk, only one that keeps risk to a reasonable minimum," reads the IIO report.

"In this case, by utilizing the passive roadblock, they did that, and while the outcome was unfortunate, the officers cannot reasonably be blamed for that."