Ron Kirkwood, the Victoria Police Department officer who fatally shot 43-year-old Lisa Rauch in 2019, will be suspended for seven days without pay after an appointed adjudicator found that his use of force was not justified.
On Thursday, June 12, retired judge Wally Oppal, the adjudicator of a public hearing looking into Rauch's death, delivered the disciplinary decision against Kirkwood, along with a list of three non-binding recommendations for the province and VicPD to consider.
"He was acting in good faith. He did not intend for the action, for the results that took place," Oppal told the crowd at the hearing. "His conduct can be described as serious but not malicious, an error in judgment committed in the context of a dynamic and challenging call."
Over the spring 2024 hearing, Oppal heard that on Christmas Day 2019, Rauch consumed alcohol and meth before becoming agitated and eventually falling into a drug-induced psychosis, threatening her friend and welding a knife before police arrived. Police noticed smoke coming from her room in a supportive housing unit and breached the unit.
After going into the unit, Kirkwood testified that he saw what he believed to be Rauch香蕉视频直播檚 abdomen. He did not see her head, which he assumed was obscured by smoke from a fire on a couch, and believed her legs were behind the couch. Kirkwood fired a less-lethal ARWEN round (fired from an anti-riot weapon) at what he thought was her stomach, but he actually shot her at least once in the back of the head.
Following the incident, Oppal heard that Kirkwood was told by a superior officer to not take notes about the incident before talking to legal counsel, to which he obliged. The lack of note taking was part of an allegation of neglect of duty, however, Oppal found that he was acting in accordance with what he was told by his superior officers.
Oppal's first recommendation was for on-duty VicPD officers to wear body cameras.
"In the circumstances of this case, there would have been a clear benefit if video footage captured the events from the members' perspectives," said Oppal. "Although the commission had a benefit of a non-police-generated video, there is no doubt that a system that would allow for us to see and hear the events unfolding through the eyes and ears of the officers at the scene would be the best of all possible options."
VicPD Chief Const. Del Manak told reporters after the hearing that he has long been an advocate for body-worn cameras on police, and he attempted to add a $150,000 line item in VicPD's 2023 budget to pilot some cameras; however, it was shot down by both the Victoria and Esquimalt councils.
"This is not new technology anymore. This is technology that I feel adds a level of accountability. It provides transparency and it allows to have a different perspective for the public and even the police to see what the officer was seeing and how they're responding to a particular call," said Manak.
In Oppal's second recommendation, he asked Manak to provide legislative guidance to the solicitor general and the Ministry of Public Safety regarding how officers should take and provide notes while under investigation by B.C.'s civilian police watchdogs, namely the Independent Investigations Office (IIO).
He explained how the courts rely on notes taken by police officers, because they carry a "significant amount of weight" in determining issues around law and fact. However, he understood that the department can only do so much 香蕉视频直播� VicPD has changed note-taking policies following the incident 香蕉视频直播� and it is a larger issue for the B.C. Legislature.
The third recommendation is for the police board to review the experiences of the Rauch family and Kirkwood and develop a policy that provides for reliable and timely, accurate and sensitive communication with those involved in these incidents. He said that there were delays in providing information, along with communication that he described as "lacking in sensitivity," and there were "multiple instances of misinformation being communicated to the family."
Oppal gave the example that Kirkwood only found out about Rauch's death through a text message.
"The IIO was given information by the Victoria Police the night of the shooting. It was untrue. When my daughter and friend went to the hospital, when Lisa was still in the intensive care unit, they were told that she had run at police with a knife, and that they had had no choice but to shoot her in the chest," said Audrey Rauch, Lisa's mom.
The Rauch family says they waited 10 months to find out their daughter was actually shot in the back of the head while sitting down on a couch.
Kirkwood has not been charged with any crime. A police discipline authority found no appearance of misconduct in 2022, and the former Police Complaint Commissioner sent that decision for review by a retired judge, who dismissed both misconduct allegations in July 2023.
The 2024 public hearing was an extension of the investigative process of the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, an independent officer of the legislature, to review and investigate complaints against police officers.