‘Freedom or death’: No charges for RCMP in fatal B.C. shooting

A police shooting that left one man dead and a woman injured at an unsanctioned campsite west of Keremeos, B.C., will not result in charges.

B.C.’s police watchdog said they investigated the Sept. 13, 2022, incident between police and two squatters who lived and intended to die by “freedom or death” ideology and concluded the officer who used lethal force did not do so outside the lawful execution of their duties.

“When applying lethal force, there also must be a threat of grievous bodily harm or death,” reads the report from Sandra Hentzen, the interim chief civilian director from the Independent Investigations Office of B.C.

“In this case, (the person shot) had a history of non-compliance, was armed with a gun and not listening to police commands. Given all of the considerations, it cannot be said the (officer’s) decisions to shoot the (two people) were unreasonable in the circumstances.”

They added it was “unfortunate” that one person died from his injuries.

1:50 RCMP shoot two people during attempted arrest in Keremeos

In the report, Hentzen laid out further insight into both the mindset of the two people who were trying to evade police capture and the details of the incident that police stayed relatively quiet about in its aftermath.

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Hentzen said that it was 7:20 a.m. when the Southeast District Emergency Response Team was called in to assist in the arrest of two people who were wanted for not attending court for “obstructing and assaulting police.”

In that earlier interaction, the man, whose name is not included in Hentzen’s report, allegedly punched a police officer’s hand and yelled “freedom or death” and “You will have to shoot me.”

Police had received information that the man and woman were living in a bus in a makeshift campsite on Crown land. They held freeman on the land ideology and were self-described anarchists, Hentzen said.

With that in mind, police arrived at the scene with a tactical armoured vehicle parked outside the bus. They announced their arrival via loudspeaker at around 7:20 a.m. and told them to leave the bus with their hands empty because they were under arrest.

2:23 Unincorporated camp concerns following shooting near Keremeos

This carried on for around 17 minutes, and Hentzen said that in a later interview, the woman told investigators they knew that they were in a case of “freedom or death.”

By 7:37 a.m., an officer threw chemical gas into the bus, and the man and woman exited.

The woman, Hentzen said, was “snarling” and armed with a “machete and a homemade cattle prod, which contained an electrical current.” The woman later referred to it as a homemade taser.

The man was seen carrying a semi-automatic gun, with a detachable magazine in his hand. It wasn’t until all was said and done that it became clear that it was a pellet gun.

Officers told the man, over the loudspeaker, “If you don’t drop the gun, you can get hurt, we don’t want to hurt you, you need to drop the gun.”

The woman later said that she was poised to ask him, “Are we doing the right thing?” but before she verbalized it a shot was fired and the man “went down.”

As he hit the ground, the woman grabbed his gun and faced the armoured vehicle. She told the police watchdog her intention was to “get shot, to be killed not to live” because it went against her belief system to kill herself.

She was shot and hit the ground.

The man died at the scene from a chest wound and the woman was transported to hospital with a gunshot wound to her shoulder.

When interviewed by investigators, the woman said they were prepared to die that day for their “freedom.”

“I wanted them to kill me… so they didn’t do a very good job of that.”