IIO clears RCMP in death of man during Burnaby, B.C., arrest in 2025

RCMP logo shown in Edmonton, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. A six-year-old is dead and two other children are injured after a hit and run in Surrey. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

SURREY — British Columbia’s police watchdog has cleared Burnaby Mounties of wrongdoing in the death of a man who went into medical distress during an arrest and died a day later.

The Independent Investigations Office says in a report that the arrest happened on July 4, 2025, when a man was seen leaving his home “behaving in an unpredictable and aggressive manner.”

The report says the man kicked down a neighbour’s front door and damaged vehicles on the driveway of another neighbour, before running at approaching officers and collapsing.

Police had handcuffed the man but found he was in medical distress, and he was taken to hospital where he died the next day.

The office says toxicology tests found he died of a combination of a congenital cardiac disease, cocaine intoxication and blunt-force trauma linked with CPR, but a pathologist told investigators the man may still have died without the chest compressions.

The investigation found that police did not cause the man’s collapse, and the evidence did not “clearly establish” that the “limited force used” in handcuffing the man contributed to his death.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 28, 2026.

The Canadian Press