B.C.’s police watchdog has cleared Vancouver officers of wrongdoing in the arrests of two teenagers who fled from a traffic stop in a stolen vehicle last year. The Independent Investigations Office of B.C. published its report on the March 29, 2025, incident Friday. Attempted traffic stop According to the document, officers were called to a parkade on the corner of Nelson and Denman streets in Vancouver’s West End shortly after 8:20 p.m. on the day of the incident. The caller, a parking attendant, reported that there was a suspicious vehicle idling in the parkade, and that it had been there for more than four hours. “He said there appeared to be five people in the car, and they were wearing black clothes and black surgical masks,” the IIO report reads. The vehicle was a Dodge Charger, and the caller is identified in the document as “Civilian Witness 1” or “CW1” “In his role as parking attendant, CW1 had approached the Dodge earlier because the driver had not paid for parking,” the report continues. “He said he had been offered cash through a partially opened window, which he had refused, and the vehicle had then driven off. The next time he checked, however, the vehicle had returned and was once again sitting idling.” Plainclothes officers responded first and confirmed that there appeared to be five people inside the vehicle, though the windows were tinted and it was hard to see in, according to the report. The first two officers radioed for a marked police vehicle to come to the parkade and attempt a traffic stop, which occurred around 8:40 p.m. The uniformed officers ran the licence plate on the vehicle and determined that it was registered to a Dodge Challenger, not a Charger. The report says the officers then “chirped” their cruiser’s siren and attempted to exit the vehicle to speak to the occupants of the Charger. Instead, the vehicle fled, tires squealing as it accelerated out of the parkade. One of the plainclothes officers tried to ram the vehicle before it reached the exit, according to the report. She was unsuccessful, and the suspicious vehicle was able to get by her unmarked police vehicle. Police initially followed the vehicle, but were directed by a supervisor not to pursue, according to the IIO report. Two crashes The Charger ended up crashing into a civilian vehicle that was travelling north on Denman Street, before colliding with a parked car on Pendrell Street. In a statement at the time, the Vancouver Police Department said there had been “no life-threatening injuries” in the collisions. The VPD also reported that the vehicle had been stolen, that there were two occupants, ages 18 and 19, and that they “anticipate multiple criminal charges.” CTV News reached out to the VPD on Friday to ask whether charges had ultimately been laid in the case, but did not receive a response. The first officers on scene after the crashes are referred to in the IIO report as Witness Officer 6 (or WO6) and Witness Officer 7 (WO7). “WO6 told IIO investigators that he saw two occupants in the Dodge, wearing black masks and ‘moving around a lot,’” the report reads. Neither the driver, who is referred to in the IIO report as the “Affected Person” or AP, nor his passenger mentioned any other occupants of the vehicle when speaking to the IIO, despite the civilian witness reporting seeing five people in the vehicle. While the passenger exited the vehicle, got on the ground and was arrested, the AP remained in the driver’s seat and “was moving around continuously,” including attempting to reach into the back seat, according to the report. Believing that he may be armed, and because he was not responding to commands, officers used a Taser on the driver before pulling him out of the vehicle and arresting him. “The AP was transported to the hospital suffering from serious head injuries,” the report reads. “He had not been wearing a seat belt at the time of the vehicle collisions.” It adds that police found “two handguns and a jerry can of gasoline” inside the vehicle. IIO decision The IIO is tasked with investigating all incidents involving police in B.C. that result in death or serious harm to a member of the public, regardless of whether there is an allegation of wrongdoing on the part of police. In this case, the office’s chief civilian director Jessica Berglund reviewed the available evidence and concluded that police had acted in a “reasonable” manner, given the circumstances. Attempting the traffic stop was reasonable given the suspicious nature of the call, opting not to pursue at high speed when the vehicle fled was appropriate, and attempting to ram the vehicle to prevent it from causing danger to the public on a busy street was reasonable, according to the report. “There is no evidence that either the (Taser) deployment or the level of force used by officers to control and arrest the AP was unjustified,” the document concludes.
