No data, no answers: Fatal shooting of autistic teen exposes gaps in B.C. policing

There are still many unanswered questions about the fatal police shooting of Chase de Balinhard in Surrey earlier this year.

The fatal police-involved shooting of 15-year-old Chase De Balinhard in Surrey, B.C., earlier this year continues to raise troubling questions — including whether officers in the province are adequately trained to respond safely to people with disabilities.

B.C.’s human rights commissioner says the government doesn’t even have the data to begin answering that question.

A family’s tragedy

For Crystal De Balinhard, the loss of her only son remains unbearable. Chase, who was autistic, was shot and killed by RCMP in February during an interaction in the family’s neighbourhood.

“When we have so many neurodiverse individuals in our community, why aren’t we protecting them?” she asked. “We need change, and we need police officer training — not from a module, not in a classroom. They need to do a practicum.”

Crystal believes Chase’s behaviours were misunderstood, and that a lack of awareness about autism contributed to his death.

Past incidents raise concerns

Concerns about the law enforcement approach to neurodivergence are not new.

In a disturbing January 2023 incident, Metro Vancouver Transit Police handcuffed a 12‑year‑old autistic boy at BC Children’s Hospital — with video showing his face pressed against the floor amid considerable distress.

Off camera, his mother Mia repeatedly asks them to remove the handcuffs.

“You’re a little too much,” she says. “This is too much.”

The video quickly rippled across social media, accumulating more than a million views.

The boy — who is managing ADHD in addition to autism — was apprehended under the Mental Health Act following a confrontation at Commercial‑Broadway SkyTrain Station.

Police said they were responding to an altercation between the child and his mother. Speaking with CTV News, Mia acknowledged the incident warranted a response, but was critical of how officers handled the situation.

In the aftermath, she urged authorities to enhance de-escalation training for law enforcement, particularly when responding to neurodivergent individuals.

Another B.C. mother, Laura Langstaff, says her family went through a terrifying ordeal when her adult son Misha — who is profoundly autistic, deaf, and requires 24-hour support — was mistaken for a suspect in a gang shooting in Nanaimo.

Langstaff recalls seeing police pointing rifles at her son and his caregiver after their white Escalade was pulled over in her complex.

“They continued to scream at Misha to show his hands,” she said. “I was terrified that he might reach down to play with the Velcro on his shoes, or do something that would get his head blown off.”

She says she tried to sign to him from a window to keep still, but officers wouldn’t allow her to intervene. “They kept screaming at a guy they knew was deaf,” Langstaff said. “It didn’t change their approach one little bit.”

For 45 minutes, she says, six rifles remained trained on her son. By the end, officers left without charges — but the trauma stayed.

Misha, now 50, developed post-traumatic stress disorder. “He still has night terrors,” Langstaff said. “If I hadn’t run outside, I don’t think Misha would be alive today.”

Langstaff says after months of advocating for her son and back and forth with various branches of the RCMP, her son was eventually issued a formal apology.

Families living in fear

For parents like Cyndi Gerlach, the risks are constant. Both of her adult sons are on the autism spectrum — one minimally verbal, the other nonverbal — and their daily lives involve navigating a world not built with their needs in mind.

Her youngest son Blake, now 25, often rides transit alone.

She says it worries her, but she has little say in what he chooses to do, as he is an adult and therefore legally, he can make his own decisions.

In late 2024, he went missing after leaving home without a phone.

Police eventually found him walking along a Chilliwack highway. Gerlach says she was told that if she hadn’t filed a missing persons report when she did, officers searching the area for an unrelated gun incident might have approached Blake, shouted commands — and acted on his instinct to run.

“Forty-five minutes of me filing the report, in my opinion, saved Blake,” she said. “My biggest fear is Blake is going to be a statistic, because it’s not about if, it’s about when. He’s afraid of people, so if people yell at him, he runs away.”

Gerlach says she has repeatedly asked officers how much training they’ve had around autism.

The answer, she says, is always the same: Little to none.

Some detachments bring in groups like the Canucks Autism Network for occasional sessions, but she says the knowledge doesn’t stay long in RCMP units with high turnover.

Gerlach recalls the moment when she heard the news of Chase’s death.

“When I looked at the news footage of the young man that was shot, his gait — the way he walked — was the way my son walks. I knew instantly he was on the spectrum,” Gerlach said.

“That is my worst fear.”

She believes the system is failing families like hers. Police are often the only emergency response available during a crisis, yet officers lack specialized training — and families lack alternatives.

“The trauma these interactions cause is lifelong,” she said. “There’s little to no mental health support for our folks, and if you can’t speak, you can’t even tell anyone how it made you feel.”

For Gerlach, Chase’s death was not an isolated tragedy — it was a warning. “His is the first that we know of in this province,” she said. “There’s going to be more deaths. It’s not an if, it’s a when. We have to learn from this, and we have to do better.”

No data, no accountability

Kasari Govender, B.C.’s human rights commissioner, says her office is investigating how police use of force impacts racialized and disabled communities.

“We are conducting an inquiry into police use of force,” Govender explained. “We’re looking at every police service across the province, including the RCMP, and trying to understand how use of force may be impacting certain communities in a disproportionate way, in particular on the basis of race and mental disability.”

But the inquiry has already revealed troubling gaps.

“There’s really nobody in B.C. collecting exactly the kind of data that we are here,” Govender said. “There are some real gaps in terms of the information that’s collected right now by other institutions and by the ministry that governs policing issues.”

According to Govender, neurodiversity is currently not explicitly tracked in police systems. Instead, officers may record whether someone is considered “emotionally disturbed” at the time of contact — an imperfect and potentially stigmatizing measure.

Why tracking matters

With Statistics Canada estimating that one in four Canadians has some form of disability, Govender argues data collection is essential to build solutions.

“We have to understand the scope of the problem in order to tailor solutions that are actually going to work,” she said. “Many of our policy decisions and our legal decisions are being made on the basis of ideology or assumptions. In order to ensure that we’re truly addressing discrimination and inequality in our systems, that we’re really respecting human dignity, we need the information to back up our policy decisions.”

For Crystal, the issue is deeply personal. “My son was pushed to his limit,” she said. “The system failed him on so many levels. There needs to be change.”

What comes next

Govender’s office can compel police to hand over data, but any recommendations from the inquiry will not be binding. Instead, the commissioner is relying on transparency and public pressure to drive reform.

“I will make recommendations as a result of this report, perhaps to police, perhaps to the provincial government,” she said. “Those recommendations will be trying to make as persuasive a case as possible, publicizing them so there’s momentum around these issues.”

Families say momentum desperately needed

Gerlach stresses that short, one-off training sessions are not enough — and that every frontline responder, from paramedics to emergency room staff, must be prepared.

“All frontline workers need to have training, and it can’t be once. You can’t do a two-hour session and then expect you’re an expert,” she said. “We have to keep evolving our knowledge, stay in front of this before we lose more lives. And the officers who shoot our folks — they have to live with that too.”

Until systemic changes are made, many families continue to live in fear — waiting for answers, hoping Chase’s death will not be repeated, and pleading for a system that protects rather than endangers their loved ones.

CTV News will continue its investigative series on Chase De Balinhard’s death throughout this week. The final part on Friday heads to the B.C. legislature to hold decisionmakers accountable. Will the family’s calls for a coroner’s inquest be honoured? Follow all the coverage here.