There are no reasonable grounds that Abbotsford police and Combined Forces Special Enforcement officers committed an offence during a 2022 incident that injured four people, according to a report released on Friday (Nov. 14) from the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. (IIO).
On Sept. 17, 2022, on Highway 7 outside of Agassiz, an officer attempted to stop a stolen vehicle using a spike strip. The driver of the vehicle swerved hard into oncoming traffic to avoid the spike strip, colliding head-on with another vehicle traveling the opposite direction. The two people in each vehicle all suffered significant injuries, and the IIO was called in.
The IIO becomes involved whenever a person dies or suffers serious physical harm that appears to be connected to the actions or inaction of law enforcement.
The driver and passenger in the reportedly stolen vehicle were known to the Abbotsford Police Department and they are believe do to have committed a string of break-ins and thefts. They reportedly did not stop for police and drove the stolen vehicle at officers. The stolen vehicle was a Mitsubishi Lancer and drove in tandem with a Toyota Matrix; both vehicles carried identical license plates. The Matrix was stolen from Abbotsford earlier that day.
An officer began following the Matrix and attempted to stop the vehicle, which sped up and moved into oncoming traffic to get away. This officer did not pursue the Matrix but drove in their direction several vehicles behind. Another officer was waiting in a ditch beside the highway with a spike strip. The Matrix swerved to avoid the strip and collided with head-on with another oncoming vehicle. A civilian recorded the incident on their cell phone.
The driver of the oncoming vehicles suffered several fractures and a punctured lung while the passenger suffered a broken back, fractured foot bones, a broken forearm and damaged kidneys. The driver and passenger from the stolen vehicle were also injured; blood samples taken from the driver indicated the presence of methamphetamine, amphetamine and diphenhydramine (allergy medication).
A post-incident examination of the Matrix noted that passenger-side front and rear tires were fully deflated, meaning the vehicle was not able to totally avoid the spike strips.
“That damage would not have been responsible for the vehicle’s swerve to the left as deflation on the right-side tires would have tended to ‘pull’ it to the right, toward the shoulder of the highway rather than into the oncoming lane,” the IIO report stated.
The IIO said the spike strip used was designed for gradual tire deflation rather than catastrophic failure in hopes of slowing the vehicle down without making the driver lose control. The IIO noted that because there was a risk the driver would swerve around the spike strip that it could have put the officer and innocent people on the road in danger, but the deployment of the spike strip could also come as a complete surprise to the driver of the stolen vehicle, leaving him no time to react.
“Had it not been for (the affected person’s) apparently desperate attempt to evade the spikes, there was no reason to expect that any significant harm would have come to (anyone),” the IIO concluded. “That being so, the force indirectly applied by the (officer) to them cannot be said to be excessive or otherwise unreasonable.”
The IIO also concluded the actions of the first officer were not considered dangerous to the public.