VICTORIA – An officer with the Victoria Police Department has been cleared of wrongdoing in the fatal shooting of a 20-year-old man at his mother’s house.

The Independent Investigations Office has wrapped up an investigation into the shooting of Rhett Mutch on Nov. 1, 2014, and said in a report released Wednesday that the case will not be forwarded to the Crown because the officer used reasonable force.

The agency said several officers responded to a 911 call from Mutch’s mother saying he’d broken into her house and was threatening to harm himself with a knife.

Four police officers entered the home and attempted to negotiate with Mutch, who was sitting on a couch, the report said.

The IIO said Mutch suddenly ran toward the officers with the weapon as they tried to arrest him and was shot once in the neck after a projectile from a bean bag gun failed to slow him down.

Mutch’s mother later told IIO investigators that a court order prohibited her son from entering the house without her consent, the report said.

She said that on the morning of the shooting, she heard glass breaking and knew it was her son breaking in.

The woman said she followed Mutch into the kitchen, where he held a knife to his stomach.

The report said she dialled 911 and told her son to put the knife down but he started to cry, saying: “I just want to die. I hate this world.” His mother said Mutch had spoken such words “for a long time.”

She told the IIO that Mutch didn’t threaten her and that she followed him into the living room before police officers arrived.

“I opened the door and I saw this big gun and I went, ‘Whoa. What is that for?”

The report said an officer told the woman her son was armed and she replied that he wouldn’t hurt anyone.

The woman said the officer’s gun would only scare her son, who was already in tears.

She said the officers would not let her stay in the house and that as she left, one of them held a large gun that looked like a bazooka.

“The mother stated, ‘This is really overkill,’” the report said.

The woman said an officer placed her in the back seat of a police car, where she heard on the radio that her son had been shot in the neck.

One of four paramedics who arrived at the scene told the IIO that a shot to the left side of Mutch’s neck appeared to have hit an artery and that blood was spurting out with each chest compression performed by one of two officers attending to him.

One of the paramedics said CPR was started in an effort to resuscitate Mutch but there was no sign of life.

The Victoria Police Department’s acting Chief Del Manak offered his sympathies to Mutch’s family and said the tragedy also had a profound effect on the officers involved.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version incorrectly reported four officers have been cleared.