B.C. watchdog clears RCMP in shooting after 2024 double murder

British Columbia's police watchdog has cleared RCMP officers in the 2024 shooting of a man who had killed two family members and barricaded himself inside a trailer in the Tsay Keh Dene Nation.

The Independent Investigations Office said officers arrived in April 2024 to find the man running toward the trailer with a rifle. A person who had escaped the killings at another home had locked themselves inside the trailer with relatives.

Police did not initially fire because they feared striking people inside, the report says. The man entered the trailer, the escapee later climbed out a window, and the man remained barricaded for several hours before police used gas to force him out.

He was shot and seriously injured as he exited carrying the rifle. The office found the officers' use of firearms was justified and reasonable, saying the weapon posed an imminent threat of serious harm or death to officers despite not being aimed directly at one when he was shot.

The report said officers believed the man had used the rifle only hours earlier to kill two relatives and had refused to surrender. It also cited witness accounts indicating he may not have expected to survive the confrontation.

Orlan Dennis later pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, though he was not named in the watchdog report. The office said it will not refer the case to prosecutors.