A Victoria police officer has been found to have committed misconduct after firing plastic bullets into a smoky room that resulted in the death of a 43-year old woman.
Retired judge Wally Oppal made the ruling in a report for the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPPC). He said that Sgt. Ron Kirkwood’s use of the plastic rounds against Lisa Rauch was “reckless and unnecessary.”
Oppal also said that Kirkwood did not commit misconduct for not making notes about the December 2019 incident.
The investigation into the incident was first ordered in January 2020 but was suspended while the Independent Investigations Office (IIO) conducted a criminal investigation, the OPCC said.
Neither the IIO nor a police discipline authority found any misconduct.
The incident happened on Christmas Day 2019, after Rauch, who was 43 at the time, had been drinking and using crystal meth with a friend when she went into a “drug induced psychosis,” according to Oppal’s decision.
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The friend left for a short time and when she returned, Rauch had locked her out. The building manager called police.
Rauch had been involved in a similar incident the day before, according to the report, where police arrested her and kept her overnight, releasing her Christmas morning.
When police arrived later that day, they entered the apartment, which was filled with smoke from a fire. Oppal’s report said police believed that Rauch was standing in the room, and two rounds of the plastic anti-riot weapon bullets were fired.
However, she had been sitting on a couch with the back of her head facing the officers. The bullets hit her in the head, “causing significant trauma.”
Officers quickly took Rauch to an outside courtyard and started lifesaving procedures. She was taken to hospital, but ultimately died from her injuries, the report said.
Kirkwood said that he would not have fired if he knew he was aiming at her head.
The report concluded that while the decision to not make notes about the incident was “contrary to his common law duty,” Kirkland had been following directions of superior officers and it was “in line” with what the force expected of him, he wrote.
Oppal said the use of the anti-riot weapon was not justified because of “obscured visibility” and the “potential lethal capacity” of the device.
Oppal called Rauch’s death “a tragedy” and expressed “deepest sympathy” to her family.
No date has been set for possible discipline or recommendations.
The Canadian Press contributed to this article.
