The Independent Investigations Office of BC has cleared the officer involved in shooting a man outside Keremeos in 2022.
The final report was published on July 22 and details the day's events as they unfolded.
The RCMP had gone to serve arrest warrants for the man and a woman who lived in a blue bus on Crown land on Sept. 13, 2022.
According to the IIO report, the pair were wanted for failing to appear in court over a previous incident of obstructing and assaulting a police officer, where the man allegedly punched an officer's hand and yelled "freedom or death" and "you will have to shoot me."
The arrest was planned with and involved members of the Emergency Response Team due to the pair's ideology and previous violence.
According to the IIO report, the woman, who was shot in the shoulder and survived the incident, described herself and the man as "anarchists," while the police stated they followed a 'freeman on the land ideology' that rejects government and police authority.
The ERT arrived at 7:20 a.m. and parked outside the pair's bus with their tactical armoured vehicle and used a loudspeaker to direct the pair to come out and surrender.
After 17 minutes with no response, the ERT deployed gas into the bus, forcing out the pair who emerged with weapons. The woman was armed with a machete and homemade electrified cattle prod.
The man emerged with a pellet gun made to look like a semi-automatic firearm with a detachable magazine, and the woman later confirmed in an interview that the pair wanted police to believe it was a real gun.
After being ordered to drop the gun, the officer under investigation fire a single shot at the man, striking him and sending him to the ground.
The woman then picked up the dropped pellet gun, pulling the slide fo the gun back in an attempt to make it appear to the police that she had loaded a round into the chamber.
"AP2 described her thinking to IIO investigators that it was her intention 'to get shot, to be killed, not to live.' She said it went against her ideology to kill herself, 'so if I'm going to die, somebody has to kill me,'" reads the report.
Before two other officers could fire a shot, the original officer fire a second shot, which hit the bus, and then a third shot that hit the woman.
The woman taken to the hospital where she was treated for the gunshot wound to her shoulder before she was later released.
"When interviewed by IIO investigations, AP2 said that they were prepared to die that day, noting 'We were prepared to die for our freedom and I wanted them to kill me... so they didn't do a very good job of that,'" reads the report.
The investigation involved statements from two civilian witnesses, 10 police officers, police radio transmissions, dispatch records, video recordings, firearm and forensic examinations and autopsy and toxicology reports.
A police drone captured the scene on video as it unfolded.
The IIO report notes that based on the pairs previous history and their refusal to obey any commands from the police that there were reasonable grounds to believe there was a threat of grievous bodily harm or death to officers or the public with two mobile home parks nearby.
"Given all of the considerations, it cannot be said SO's decision to shoot AP1 and AP2 were unreasonable in the circumstances," reads the report.
