Candice Meadows says her former husband David was a good man, whose death should never have happened.
She said she wanted their four-year-old daughter to have a relationship with him, but she had concerns about his state of mind.
“I was in court, we both had lawyers,” she said. “I wasn’t comfortable dropping her off anymore for the visits because I had just noticed some erratic behaviour.”
Despite her concerns about dropping off her child, Meadows said she was told she “had to, that it was a court order and I was not to breach the court order.”
On Saturday, David was having a supervised visit with his daughter at Seasons Mediation and Family Services in Chilliwack.
Halfway through the visit, he walked out with her and ran in and out of traffic with his daughter.
Strangers tried to intervene near the intersection of Vedder Road and Well Road.
A Taser was deployed following a struggle with police, and David later died in hospital.
“Where’s my daughter’s father now?” Meadows said. “There’s no need for Tasing. I don’t believe in Tasers. I just think that’s a cheap, easy way to get someone under control.”
The two were due back in court in August.
David was also due in court in March for breaching a no-contact order involving Candice and her older daughter.
He had been struggling with drugs and had behaved erratically. Two years ago, he jumped off a balcony with his daughter but she managed to grab a hold of a rail.
David was allowed supervised visits for two hours a week. On Saturday, there was a new person supervising the visit who didn’t know David.
“I never saw him that day,” Meadows said of David. “If I would have seen him, I would have said, ‘There’s no way this visit is happening,’ and I would have taken the consequences.”
Meadows says she is now focusing on her daughter’s well-being.
“She didn’t see any of it,” she said. “There was actually someone who intercepted and turned her away. As far as she knows, Dada, as she calls him, is just in heaven.”
The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) is looking into the incident and says it’s waiting on an autopsy report that will help determine whether the Taser used by police had anything to do with his death.
The IIO investigates all incidents involving police officers that result in serious injury or death.
— With files from Grace Ke and The Canadian Press