A gunshot that prompted a Vancouver police officer to open fire on a suspect during a November 2024 arrest came from a fellow officer’s “accidental discharge,” a B.C. law enforcement watchdog has determined. That mistake—which resulted in the suspect taking a bullet to his upper arm—was one of multiple “errors” made by the officers during the incident, according to a report released Friday by the Independent Investigations Office. “However, those errors do not rise to the level of criminality, either in isolation or cumulatively,” wrote Jessica Berglund, chief civilian director of the IIO. The incident unfolded while the two plainclothes officers were responding to an early morning 911 call about a BMW that had allegedly been stolen at knifepoint. The police managed to box the vehicle in at a residential intersection in East Vancouver, then approached the BMW and ordered the driver to get out. One officer told the IIO he saw the suspect put the vehicle in reverse, leading him to try breaking the driver’s-side window using the butt of his pistol—which resulted in a “pop” sound that he later realized was his gun firing by accident. He immediately heard two more “pop” sounds, according to the report, and saw the suspect’s “behaviour had changed.” The officer told the watchdog the driver unlocked the BMW’s door then stepped outside screaming, “Don’t kill me!” The second officer—who had been across the vehicle on the passenger side—said he fired twice into the BMW because he believed the gunshot had come from inside. Berglund found that to be a “reasonable” assumption. She determined the officer’s use of force was therefor justified in order to protect his colleague from the perceived “threat of death or grievous bodily harm.” The IIO report notes that it was dark outside, with the arrest taking place around 4 a.m. No weapon was found in the vehicle. Police had previously characterized the suspect as “armed and dangerous,” however, after spotting the BMW being driven “at very high speeds in a dangerous manner.” The other officer’s attempt to break the glass using his gun was among the errors identified in the IIO report. “Across policing generally, firearms are not normally intended to be used as impact tools because of the risks of accidental discharge and damage to the weapon,” Berglund wrote. “Having said this, any misuse of the pistol in this case does not meet the criminal test for careless use of a firearm.” The officers had also both been directed to stand down efforts to arrest the suspect, but failed to do so, according to the report. IIO investigators interviewed the suspect in hospital, and said he admitted to stealing the BMW—but told them when he was shot, he had only been struggling to put the vehicle in park. The report indicates the vehicle had “a non-standard gear selection system with a push-button parking brake.”
