Transit cop cleared in death

Photo: CTV

A transit police officer has been cleared of wrongdoing in a fatal confrontation in Surrey.

The Independent Investigations Office, the body that probes serious incidents involving police, issued a report saying the officer used reasonable force when she shot the 23-year-old man in a Safeway parking lot in December 2014.

The report says two officers arrived at the scene and were confronted by a shirtless man with multiple wounds who had reportedly stabbed himself inside the grocery store.

Police ordered the man, Naverone Christian Landon Woods, to drop the knives he was waving, but he did not and instead moved towards the officers.

The report says the knives could have caused the officers serious injury or death, and the female officer's decision to fire her gun was reasonable given the circumstances.

The officer later told investigators that she believed the young man was high on drugs or in a severe episode of mental illness.

“Regardless of the fact that the investigation leads to the conclusion that the involved officers did not commit any offence, the circumstances of the affected person’s death were tragic,” the IIO said in its report.

Witnesses, including employees of the Safeway, told the IIO the man had entered the store, taken off his shirt, grabbed a box of paring knives and pulled out two of the blades.

He said, “I didn’t do this. I never did this. I want to die,” before stabbing himself in the stomach, according to one account.

– with files from CTV Vancouver