Watchdog clears B.C. police in deaths involving three separate incidents

SURREY, B.C. – The Independent Investigations Office in B.C. has cleared officers of wrong doing in connection to three separate police-involved deaths.

IIO Director Richard Rosenthal has concluded there is no evidence that police officers committed an offence in any of the incidents.

Two of the investigations involved RCMP in Surrey, B.C., while the other involved a confrontation with a distraught man in Vancouver.

In the Vancouver incident on Nov. 13, 2012, police used a Taser in an effort to subdue a man who was repeatedly stabbing himself, but the victim later died in hospital.

On Dec. 21, 2012, a Surrey RCMP officer stopped a van to check an obscured licence plate and the driver shot himself before the officer was able reach the vehicle.

Just one week later, another Surrey Mountie was involved in a crash that turned deadly when the distracted driver died several days after suddenly turning his vehicle in front of the officer’s oncoming, unmarked police van.