Photo: VPD

The Independent Investigations Office has cleared a Vancouver police officer of any wrongdoing in a high-profile gang investigation in 2017 that involved a suspect suffering serious injuries during an arrest.

The suspect, whose name was not released, suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung and a liver laceration after the Ford Explorer he was a passenger in crashed into three parked vehicles in south Vancouver.

When the Explorer stopped, the suspect said a police officer — a dog handler — punched him “a few times” in the head and body after a police dog “started grabbing my leg and stuff,” according to a report released June 7 by IIO Chief Civilian Director Ronald Macdonald.

Macdonald concluded from the evidence that the suspect’s injuries occurred during an initial attempt by police in an SUV to stop the Explorer by striking its door and a second successful attempt by another police-driven SUV that caused the crash.

“It is highly unlikely that an officer would have entered a suspect vehicle believed to be occupied by two potentially violent individuals with at least one firearm, in the manner described by [the suspect],” Macdonald wrote.

“There is no evidence of any injury, superficial or otherwise, attributable to punches.”

Macdonald described the injuries caused by the dog as “minor.”

The investigation ended in seven arrests, the seizure of four guns, ammunition and various charges against what police at the time described as “a violent group.”

The documents say S.K.K., a youth at the time, and driver Simrat Singh Lally were believed to be on their way to shoot a firearm into the family residence of members of a rival street gang.

Lally, who was 19 at the time, pleaded guilty in December to arson and firearm charges and was sentenced March 8 in B.C. Supreme Court to almost five years in prison.

Macdonald said the officer in question was justified in his use of force — both in the vehicle collision and the use of his police dog — in the arrest.

“The police were faced with attempting to prevent what they understood to be a planned shooting,” he wrote.