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Grand Forks RCMP cleared in man’s death

BC’s Independent Investigations Office says no charges will be laid in the death of a man in Grand Forks this year following a wellness check by RCMP.

The office’s report found no sign of negligence by the police officers involved, who were asked by the man’s sister to check on him on the evening of June 8, 2021. She hadn’t been able to contact him and was concerned because he struggled with physical and mental health issues.

According to the report, two officers went to the man’s home and found him asleep in bed and breathing normally. They said they would return the next day to check on him again.

However, before that could happen, someone else came to the house and found the man in medical distress. He was taken by ambulance to hospital, where he was admitted in “grave” condition and died a few hours later of natural causes stemming from a variety of medical problems.

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The IIO probed whether the officers had been negligent, but found no evidence to support that conclusion. Chief Civilian Director Ronald J. MacDonald wrote that there was nothing to suggest there was anything else they should have done.

“[T]hey were under no duty to go further — to wake him and attempt to assess him medically, a task for which they were neither trained nor qualified,” MacDonald wrote.

“There is no reason to conclude that the officers could reasonably have foreseen that deterioration in [the man]’s health, or that they conducted themselves in any way improperly.”

As a result, the IIO will not be referring the file to Crown Counsel.

The officers involved did not give an account to the IIO. The report does not name the man who died, nor the officers involved.

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