IIO report critical of officer’s conduct

A Kelowna RCMP officer sent to check on the well-being of a person “almost immediately” abandoned the effort after failing to gain entry to an apartment building, the province’s police watchdog says.

The unidentified officer spent less than two minutes at the building’s front door, where he couldn’t find the person’s name on a list of tenants. He then called the outof-province woman who had first contacted Kelowna police to express her concern to get someone else to check on the building resident.

An hour later, the person was found dead inside the apartment.

The officer’s actions “quite likely” constituted criminal negligence, Ronald J. MacDonald of the BC Independent Investigations Office concluded in a report on the matter that was released Thursday.

But since it was likely the person was already dead by the time the officer went to the building, the IIO concluded there were no reasonable grounds to recommend to Crown that the officer be charged with any offence.

The IIO is called whenever it is believed a police officer’s actions or inactions may be connected to the death or serious physical harm of an individual.

On Jan. 10, Kelowna RCMP received a call from a woman in another province expressing concern about the health and well-being of a person. The officer, who is not named in the IIO report as per standard practice, was dispatched at 10:02 a.m. to perform a wellness check.

The officer, having been told the person in question was “extremely sick with laboured breathing” arrived at the building at 10:40 a.m. Names of residents are not listed on the building’s directory and the “apartment numbers on the buzzer are coded”, the IIO report says.

Video surveillance shows the officer examining the directory and leaving about two minutes later. He was dispatched back to the building at 11:48 a.m. after the building manager found the resident dead inside the suite.

When the officer returned, he did not tell his supervisor he had been at the building an hour earlier but had left after not getting past the front door.

A subsequent coroner’s report found the person had died of natural causes.

The officer’s conduct is criticized in strong language in the IIO report.

“The Subject Officer’s failure in this case to properly comply with his sworn duty to protect life was significant and came at least very close to and quite likely crossed the criminal negligence threshold,” the report states.

“Subject Officer had information that Affected Person was seriously ill and was no longer answering the phone. After the RCMP got a call to check on a very sick person, Subject Officer almost immediately abandoned his investigation after being stopped by the building’s front door.

“There were other options he could have pursued but he failed to take any, other than to call the complainant back to tell her to get someone else to do the job he had been tasked to do,” the report states.

The officer should have made “serious efforts” to check on the building resident’s condition, the report says. Such efforts could have included rousing other building occupants, contacting the manager, or even forcing entry. “Indeed, a forced entry in these circumstances would quite likely have been appropriate,” the report says.

“However, the objective evidence here indicates that the failure of the Subject Officer to gain entry and conduct a check on the deceased did not make any difference to the unfortunate outcome. The evidence would strongly suggest that the Affected Person was already deceased when Subject Officer initially attended,” the report states.

“That being so, it cannot be said that the evidence establishes that Subject Officer committed the offence of criminal negligence causing death, given that his inaction cannot be said to have caused Affected Person’s death when Affected Person was very likely already dead.”

While the IIO did not refer the matter to Crown counsel for consideration of charges, it did say the officer’s actions “may well constitute a breach of RCMP policy and practice, which is a matter for their Professional Standards branch to address”.