Police cleared of fault in fatal 2023 crash in B.C.'s Interior

The RCMP logo is seen outside the force's 'E' division headquarters in Surrey, B.C., on March 16, 2023. (Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press)

British Columbia's independent police watchdog has cleared officers of wrongdoing in a crash where three people were killed south of Kamloops in July of last year.

A report from the Independent Investigations Office says a man was driving recklessly at a high rate of speed and was in the wrong lane on Highway 97D near Logan Lake when he hit another vehicle head-on. The man and the two occupants in the other car died.

The report says RCMP had removed the man who caused the crash from a hotel in Merritt, about 90 minutes before the fatal collision, triggering an investigation into whether police actions may have played a role in the crash.

Chief Civilian Director Jessica Berglund says in the report that a toxicology test done on the man found evidence of cannabis consumption above the legal driving limit, but officers were "reasonable" in deciding not to apprehend the man at the hotel.

Berglund says both officers at the scene stayed with the man for 20 to 30 minutes while removing him from the hotel, and neither the officers nor a hotel employee who witnessed the interaction felt the man was impaired during that time.

Her report says the man made a critical decision that resulted in a crash, and the case was very tragic for the family and friends of all those involved.

"However, the officers were not responsible for these tragic deaths, and no criminal liability flows to them as a result," Berglund's report concludes.

The report says the man was told to leave the hotel after flooding his room, and he admitted to officers that he had taken painkillers and smoked cannabis the night before he was removed.

Berglund says the officers at the scene were "doing continuous assessments" on the man's mental health and impairment during the entirety of the time they spent with him, and never felt he was impaired at the time.

The decision says officers "would have to show a wanton or reckless disregard" for potential danger to human lives in order to have criminal liability, adding that police behaviour in this case doesn't constitute a "marked and substantial departure" from appropriate standard procedure.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.