British Columbia’s police oversight agency says a Kelowna RCMP officer “most likely crossed the threshold of criminal negligence” when his attempt to conduct a welfare check on a man who was later found dead was thwarted because the officer failed to do so. was able to find the man’s doorbell number. department.
BC’s Independent Investigations Office issued its report on the matter on Thursday. While the report strongly condemns the Mountie’s actions, it does not refer the case to prosecutors for possible criminal charges because the coroner’s evidence indicates the man “most likely was already dead” when the welfare check was performed.
Instead, the police watchdog agency referred the case to the RCMP’s professional standards branch, saying the unnamed officer’s inaction “may well constitute a violation of RCMP policy and practice.”
According to the IIO’s account of the incident, a woman who lives out of province called Kelowna RCMP on Jan. 10 because she was concerned about her friend’s health and told the police dispatcher that her friend was ” extremely sick and had difficulty breathing” when they spoke. by phone the day before.
The officer was dispatched to the man’s apartment building at 10:02 a.m. He arrived at 10:40 a.m., spent only two minutes at the front door of the building before leaving and told the woman to find someone else to check on him, the report said. .
The scene officer’s notes indicate that the tenants’ names are not listed in the building’s intercom directory and that “the apartment numbers on the doorbell are encoded,” according to the report.
“A video recording from the building’s lobby shows [the officer] “He appears outside the front door, examines the building directory, and then leaves,” the IIO report says. “She’s there for about two minutes.”
An hour later, the same officer was sent to the building again, this time to assist paramedics in case of sudden death. The building manager had found the man dead in his apartment that morning.
At that time, the officer “informed a supervisor at the scene, but there is no indication that [he] “He told the supervisor that he had been at the residence approximately one hour earlier, or that he had not completed the requested welfare check on that occasion,” according to the report.
The coroner determined the man died of natural causes sometime the previous day or night.
The officer ‘abandoned his investigation’
The police watchdog agency says it relied on information from the coroner as well as surveillance video and RCMP records to piece together its investigation into the botched welfare check.
“[The officer’s] “The failure in this case to fulfill its sworn duty to protect life was significant and came at least very close to and very likely crossed the threshold of criminal negligence,” IIO Chief Civilian Director Ronald J. MacDonald wrote in his findings.
“[The officer] had information that [the man] was seriously ill and was no longer answering his phone,” MacDonald said.
“After the RCMP received a call to check on a very sick person, [the officer] He almost immediately abandoned his investigation after being stopped at the building’s front door. “There were other options he could have pursued, but he took none, other than calling the complainant to tell her to find someone else to do the job he had been given.”
The police watchdog agency says the officer should have attempted to contact the superintendent or other residents of the building or entered by force. “According to the evidence available for this investigation, [the officer] did very little,” the report states.
“However, the objective evidence here indicates that the failure of [the officer] entering and performing a check on the deceased did not influence the unfortunate outcome,” the report concludes. “The evidence strongly suggests that [the man] was already deceased when [the officer] I initially attended.”