B.C.’s police-watchdog agency says there is no evidence of police wrongdoing in a 2023 case where a man arrested for mischief in Parksville later died in hospital from a brain injury.
The man was taken into custody July 18, 2023, after police were told he had knocked over a musician’s equipment at an open-air market, the Independent Investigations Office said in a report released Tuesday.
The arrest took place in view of civilian eyewitnesses, “none of whom observed any use of force against him,” said the report by the IIO, which investigates police-related incidents involving death or serious injury.
The report said the man appeared to be in distress and under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and that he claimed he had been assaulted the previous night.
He already had a black and eye, and dried blood on his nose and hands, the report said. A witness informed police that she saw him trip and hit the back of his head on the ground before stumbling away from the market.
A witness also said the man had been punched and kicked “by other homeless people,” the report said.
The report said the man was booked into a cell, didn’t complain of any injury and appeared to have only a minor facial wound.
He was monitored while in the cell, and when he appeared to be still impaired the next morning, police called for a medical response, the report said.
The man was then taken to hospital as a precaution and found to be suffering from a brain injury. He was transferred to hospital in Vancouver, where he died on July 22, 2023.
The cause of death was complications of a ruptured intercranial aneurysm, “with blunt force trauma a significant contributing factor,” the report said.
It said evidence indicates he was treated “appropriately and respectfully” by police at all times.
Meanwhile, the IIO is seeking witnesses in connection with a pair of January motor-vehicle incidents on the Island.
One of them occurred about 3 a.m. Jan. 12 in Victoria, after a sedan was seen being driven on the wrong side of Esquimalt Road and later crashed, injuring two people.
The IIO is also asking for witnesses in the Jan. 11 arrest of a woman in Qualicum Beach, after police responded to a minor collision outside a laundry attached to a gas station on Island Highway West.
When police responded about 10 a.m., they found the woman in the driver’s seat of a Jeep Patriot that had hit a parked vehicle.
Police said the woman showed signs of impairment, so they arrested her and took her to police cells.
She was later discovered to be in medical distress while still in the cell, and was taken to hospital by ambulance in serious condition.
Hospital staff determined she had suffered a medical event that resulted in serious injury.
People with information can call the IIO witness line toll-free at 1-855-446-8477 or via the website at iiobc.ca.
