A B.C. man who was observed breaking into a car wash coin booth and was later shot by police is suing three RCMP officers for excessive force.
According to court documents, the incident occurred in Salmon Arm, at XCalibur Car Wash along the Trans-Canada Highway, on Jan. 30, 2017, just after 12 a.m.
The lawsuit, filed in Kamloops, says police shot at the plaintiff’s truck 14 times, which a report from the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. confirmed.
As of a result of being shot, the plaintiff, Kaymen Wesley Winter, is said to have sustained a variety of injuries, including bone and metal fragments penetrating five centimetres into his brain.
The lawsuit also listed the Attorney General of Canada and the Province of B.C. as defendants.
The shooting happened as Winter tried to exit the car wash in his ‘lifted’ Chevy Silverado. A photo shows a police vehicle blocking the exit path, with a second off to the truck’s passenger side and a third blocking the car wash entrance.
The lawsuit says Winter resides in Surrey, though his truck at the time had Alberta licence plates.
It also says the officer used excessive force in shooting him; that the RCMP failed to properly train the officer in the reasonable use of force; and that the officer fired on him “notwithstanding that there was no threat of death or serious bodily harm to anyone present.”
In its report, the IIO of B.C. said the car wash owner saw Winter trying to access the coin box via closed-circuit television. The owner then called 911.
The car wash features automatic entrance doors, but manually operated exit doors.
While he was doing so, the three police vehicles arrived: one officer at the entrance, one at the exit and the third, off to the truck’s passenger side. It was that officer who wound up firing the shots.
The report said Winter’s “intentions were to … drive around the … cop. Because there was — like how he parked he parked at an angle and so there was just enough room for me to go around …”
The officers told the IIO they believed that the truck was trying to run over the blocking officer.
The report later said “Officer 1 had to make a split second decision about what, in his mind, was needed to protect Officer 3 from being run over and possibly killed. In that situation, the law did not require Officer 1 to first carefully calculate how much force was needed. If he took that time, Officer 3 may have been killed.”
The lawsuit is seeking relief for general damages, special damages, exemplary damages, punitive damages, constitutional damages for breaching the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; costs and interest.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.