British Columbia’s police watchdog group has found an RCMP officer to be justified in the shooting and killing of a man in a Hope hospital last year.
The report, published Sept. 27 by the Independent Investigations Office of B.C., found the officer’s use of lethal force to be reasonable and justified.
According to a detailed narrative of events given in the report, police were called to the hospital June 28, 2023, following reports a male patient was threatening a female companion held in a separate treatment unit.
Both patients had been involved in a two-car collision near Highway 5 after the man, who had been experiencing mental health issues with suicidal ideation, purposefully crashed head-on into a pickup truck parked in a construction site.
The two former partners had been placed at opposite ends of a hallway in the hospital after the woman disclosed the man had threatened to kill …