Police cleared in triple-fatal

Police actions have been ruled out as the cause of a head-on crash that killed three people last year west of Kamloops.

Emergency crews were called to a stretch of Highway 97D outside Logan a little before noon on July 23, 2023, for a report of a fatal collision.

The collision was the result of the reckless driving of a man police had dealt with a few hours earlier, when he was being kicked out of a motel in Merritt.

Investigators determined the man, whose name has not been made public, crossed the centre line on Highway 97D. When an oncoming vehicle swerved to miss him, he swerved at the same time and caused the head-on crash.

A toxicology analysis showed the man was over the legal limit for THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, and he had higher than usual levels of antihistamine in his system, but he was not otherwise impaired.

Relatives told police the man’s mental health had deteriorated in the months prior and he was paranoid.

“Attempts were made by family members to try to medically assist [him] with his mental health, but those efforts were not successful,” Jessica Berglund, head of the Independent Investigations Office, said in a written decision.

Berglund said IIO investigators were unable to connect the man’s reckless driving to the actions of the police officers who had been dealing with him about 90 minutes earlier.

Two Mounties said they spent 20 or 30 minutes with the man, and they did not believe him to be impaired when they parted ways. In fact, they said he was in good spirits — "friendly and more relaxed” than he had been previously.

“[The man] made a critical decision which resulted in a collision, killing both himself and two other people,” Berglund wrote.

“This is a very tragic case for the family and friends of all those involved. However, the officers were not responsible for these tragic deaths and no criminal liability flows to them as a result."