Lethal force justified in shooting death of Surrey killer: report<\/p>\n
Published 1:56 pm Thursday, March 5, 2026<\/p>\n
Lethal force was justified in the shooting death of a Clayton Heights man in the summer of last year, according to a new report.<\/p>\n
The Independent Investigations Office of B.C. (IIO) released the report March 5 detailing a months-long investigation into the shooting death of the machete-wielding man who had just killed his wife.<\/p>\n
IIO\u2014B.C.\u2019s police watchdog\u2014found the officer, who fired on the man after he threw a machete at Mounties, did not \u201ccommit an offence\u201d as lethal force was justified in that situation.<\/p>\n
Members of the RCMP\u2019s provincial squad were called to a house in Clayton in the late evening of July 7, 2025, after a 911 call from a tenant in a basement suite. The tenant reported a possible domestic assault at a home near the intersection of 194th Street and 66th Avenue.<\/p>\n
According to the IIO report, the caller asked the police to \u201ccome urgently.\u201d The person told 911 \u201che and family members had left the home, and through a window he had seen his upstairs neighbor, (the man who was later shot) hitting his wife.\u201d The caller also told the dispatcher he saw blood on the woman\u2019s clothes and thought the man had \u201churt her badly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five mounties went to the house. Shortly after they arrived, they found the man holding a machete and covered in blood.<\/p>\n
According to the report, everything happened very quickly. An officer radioed, \u201cmaking entry to clear.\u201d This was followed by, \u201cCode 4, man covered in blood \u2026 He\u2019s got a knife we\u2019re giving commands.\u201d About 15 seconds after that a second officer radioed in, \u201cShots fired! Shots fired!\u201d<\/p>\n
The report noted when the Mounties first arrived, the man was spotted at the back door of the house covered in blood and holding a machete. Two officers tried to take the man down using a stun gun (conducted energy weapon). After that he threw the machete, overarm, in the direction of the police and that\u2019s when one cop fired his pistol.<\/p>\n
After the man had fallen down, police charged forward and found the man dead. He was lying beside his wife. The woman was already dead. Both were in their 60s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe (man) was found deceased inside the door, close to the body of his spouse, who had apparently been struck and killed by the (man\u2019s) machete before police arrival,\u201d the report revealed.<\/p>\n
The report also noted that a forensic examination of the scene, including firearms and other items, revealed the officer had fired six rounds from his pistol with only one round striking the man and the other five bullets hitting the side of the doorway and the wall of the house.<\/p>\n
After an autopsy, the man \u201cwas found to have suffered a single fatal bullet wound to the chest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jessica Berglund, chief civilian director of the IIO, wrote that when the man appeared in the doorway, \u201cblood-stained and armed with a potentially deadly weapon,\u201d the risk to the police was elevated to the level of an imminent threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was appropriate, in those circumstances, when the (man) failed to comply with directions to drop the machete, to deploy non-lethal force against him\u201d with the stun gun.<\/p>\n
She added that when the man threw the machete at the RCMP officers, it could be interpreted as an attempt to cause them grievous bodily harm.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point, it was reasonable for the (Mountie) to conclude that the use of lethal force was necessary in the officers\u2019 defense, and the shots he discharged at the (man) were justified in law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berglund concluded, \u201cI do not consider that there are reasonable grounds to believe that an officer may have committed an offense under any enactment and the matter will not be referred to the B.C. prosecution service for consideration of charges.\u201d<\/p>\n
The full report<\/a> can be found on the IIO\u2019s website, iiobc.ca.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lethal force justified in shooting death of Surrey killer: report Published 1:56 pm Thursday, March 5, 2026 Lethal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":{"0":"post-517993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-surrey","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-surrey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}