The province's civilian police watchdog has concluded West Vancouver officers weren't violating any laws when an intoxicated woman in custody fell and cut her face open.
The Independent Investigations Office was called in immediately after the incident on July 6 when West Vancouver officers responded to a complaint of an alleged drunk driver in the ferry lineup at Horseshoe Bay just after noon.
They took the woman into custody and attempted to wrangle her into the back of a department SUV, but she was unable to stand or sit up on her own and only responded to officers' commands with "unintelligible groaning and/or words," the report from the IIO notes.
Unable to get her to sit up, the officer left her lying on the back seat. On the drive back to WVPD headquarters, the suspect rolled off the seat bench and struck her face on an exposed bolt used to secure the seat to the floor. The bolt caused significant lacerations to her face, which required 16 staples to close, according to the report.
Under the Police Act, that qualifies as "serious harm" to a person in custody and automatically triggers an IIO investigation as to whether an officer may have committed an offence.
While chief civilian director Richard Rosenthal concluded that the prisoner wouldn't have fallen and been injured if she were buckled in, it didn't constitute "wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons" - the definition of criminal negligence in the Canadian Criminal Code.
West Vancouver officers are only required to buckle a prisoner in if the vehicle doesn't have a separate caged compartment in the back seat, and Justice Institute of B.C. training only directs officers to use a "seat belt if possible."
Similarly, police are exempt from the Motor Vehicle Act requirements for buckling in passengers.
"I have reviewed the concluded investigation. I do not consider that any officer may have committed an offence under any enactment and will not be making a report to Crown counsel," Rosenthal wrote in his report.
"Nothing else about the officer's driving or handling of the affected person, above and beyond the failure to secure her with a seatbelt, suggested a disregard for her safety."
The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner is also looking into the case and WVPD has pledged to remove the bolt or cover it in rubber to prevent future accidents.
