The province’s Independent Investigations Office has cleared the Nelson Police Department of any wrongdoing in injuries suffered by Andrew Stevenson when they arrested him last April for bank robbery.
After a robbery at the Nelson and District Credit Union, police pursued Stevenson to a bridge on Blewett Road in the Bonnington area. According to police, he did not follow their orders to stop and instead jumped off the bridge. He was injured by the 30 to 40 foot (9 to 12 m) fall and taken to the hospital.
Stevenson later said he felt compelled to jump off the bridge because police had threatened to kill him. He also said that an officer tried to move him when he was lying on the ground after his fall, causing more injury.
This triggered an investigation by the Independent Investigations Office, a civilian-led organization whose role is to look into any situation where a person is seriously injured or killed in an interaction with the police.
In his report, chief investigator Richard Rosenthal said Stevenson’s allegations do not appear to be true, based on the testimony of two arresting officers, a witness officer, a civilian witness, and Stevenson himself.
Rosenthal writes that the officers only said, “police, don’t move,” two or three times, and that the civilian witness reported hearing the words, “get down, get down” and “put the gun down.”
He also concluded the police’s attempt to move Stevenson ceased immediately upon the police discovering he was injured, and was therefore not unreasonable “given the significant efforts he had taken to avoid apprehension.”
The report notes that the time elapsed between Stevenson leaving his vehicle and the police calling for an ambulance from under the bridge was one minute and 36 seconds.
Rosenthal declined to forward the file to Crown counsel for possible charges.
“The report confirmed what I witnessed,” said police chief Wayne Holland, who was on the scene but was not one of the witnesses interviewed for the report. “The police response was valiant, and it was compassionate in terms of the injuries he suffered.”
Stevenson and Krista Ann Kalmikoff were arrested for a string of robberies in addition to the one at the credit union. Their preliminary inquiries began in late January and resume March 17. Kalmikoff is out on bail while Stevenson is serving five months as a result of an escape attempt prior to an appearance at the Nelson courthouse in September.
This story was updated on February 23 to add the comments from police chief Wayne Holland.
