BURST
Police officers involved in a 2023 fatal shooting of a teen in east Vancouver’s Clinton Park have been cleared of wrongdoing after an independent review found that the officers legitimately feared for their lives when they fired more than 20 rounds.
According to a review shared Thursday by the Independent Investigations Office of B.C., the officers had been called to Clinton Park on Aug. 5, 2023, at around 2 a.m. for the report of gunfire and believed there was a possibly armed suspect waiting.
When officers approached and announced their arrival, an 18-year-old boy stood and pointed what looked like a gun at police, prompting one officer to open fire.
The officers, who had approached from different sides of the park, scattered in the darkness to take cover, believing there was return gunfire. Officers reported hearing more shots fired and seeing what they thought were muzzle flares from the individual and also opened fire.
Upon reviewing duty reports, interviewing witnesses and combing through nearby surveillance footage, the IIOBC determined there had been more than 20 shots fired by police. Six of those hit the teen, including fatal shots to the head and neck.
It was later determined that the teen’s weapon was an empty .177-calibre pellet gun designed to look realistic. A forensic expert who examined the pellet gun also told the IIOBC that it wasn’t capable of making a realistic gunshot sound, nor could it produce a muzzle flash.
A phone was also found near the teen and it was confirmed the original 911 call to report gunfire had been made from that phone.
“In some respects, it is difficult to reconcile police accounts of the incident with the objective evidence about the pellet gun believed to have been in the (affected person’s) possession,” read the report, authored by chief civilian director Jessica Berglund. “The descriptions of multiple shots fired by the (victim), accompanied by muzzle flashes and loud sounds, are not consistent with the evidence that the gun could not produce a loud sound or muzzle flash.
“It is possible that, once officers started discharging their firearms, officers beside them in the darkness were simply confused by the sounds and flashes of light from their colleagues weapons.”
Berglund said while that didn’t explain how officers could have heard “subsequent volleys of police gunfire in response to continued shots from the (victim),” she said the evidence collected did establish that the officers were responding to what they thought was a shots-fired incident, that they found an individual matching the given description of an alleged shooter, and that the teen had stood up and pointed a realistic-looking gun at them.
“Those facts alone, in the circumstances of this case, support that the officers had subjective belief that they faced an imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm and justify the use of lethal force in response to that threat,” she wrote, noting that no offence had been committed.