B.C.’s police oversight body has been called in to investigate after a friendly fire incident in the Southern Interior Tuesday.
Around 10:30 a.m., the B.C. RCMP says members of the Kelowna detachment began tracking a “suspicious” Ford F-350 from the air as it drove south along Highway 33.
The pickup truck eventually made it to a forest service road near Midway, close to the U.S. border, and around 1:30 p.m. officers from a number of detachments stopped the vehicle.
Police say they arrested two occupants of the vehicle, one of whom suffered a “non-serious” police dog bite.
Mounties say one of their own was also shot during the arrest. The officer was taken to hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound and has since been released, the force says.
“Preliminary information at this time has led the RCMP to believe that the gun shot wound to the RCMP member was due to police officer fire,” reads a news release. “Therefore, this matter will also be the subject of a workplace incident investigation.”
The Independent Investigations Office of B.C., which looks into all police-related incidents that result in serious harm or death, whether or not there are any allegations of wrongdoing, says it was notified of the incident the same day.
The IIO says it will first seek to confirm the extent of the officer’s injuries to determine whether or not they meet the threshold of serious harm, as defined by the Police Act.
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the IIO’s witness line at 1-855-446-8477 or submit a statement on its website.
