SURREY — British Columbia’s police watchdog agency says it doesn’t believe an Abbotsford officer committed an offence when a traffic-stop arrest turned fatal last year. The Independent Investigations Office says in a report into the death of a man on Feb. 9, 2025, that the case was “unfortunately” an escalation from a “straightforward traffic stop.” The man was driving a pickup truck when police followed him, believing the vehicle may have been stolen, before stopping and arresting him outside a Mission, B.C., fast-food restaurant. Witnesses, including other officers, bystanders and a passenger in the truck, told investigators that the man verbally sparred with police using profanities before a struggle when he refused to lie down on the ground, possibly due to a mobility issue. Pepper spray was used during the arrest, and the man was placed in the back of a police car before he stopped breathing and was taken to hospital, where he later died. The autopsy found the man died from a combination of acute intoxication from drugs, including methamphetamine, the stress from the struggle and pre-existing medical conditions of heart disease and obesity. Chief Civilian Director Jessica Berglund says in the report that while the responding officers were “acting largely on suspicions rather than hard evidence” when they stopped the truck, the death would not have happened if the man co-operated fully as the law requires. Berglund says the man’s aggressiveness in swearing at the officers may have increased the officers’ risk assessment in judging that the man needed to be handcuffed. “It cannot be said, in the circumstances, that any of the officers used force that was unnecessary or excessive,” she says. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 7, 2026.
