The mother of a woman fatally shot by a Victoria officer more than five years ago says she was shocked by a , and hopes it makes officers think twice before using less-lethal ARWEN weapons in situations with limited visibility.
Audrey Rauch said she was grateful for Friday’s decision, which came after other investigations cleared Sgt. Ron Kirkwood of misconduct and criminal wrongdoing in the death of 43-year-old Lisa Rauch.
“I’m sort of shocked that it turned out this way. We spent time preparing ourselves for a different decision, so this one is welcome,” she said.
Lisa Rauch had locked herself in a unit of a Pandora Avenue housing facility on Christmas Day 2019 after drinking alcohol and consuming methamphetamine. Rauch was mentally ill and suffered from addiction, her parents said.
Officers were responding to a report Rauch had threatened the unit’s tenant with a knife before barricading herself inside alone.
While police initially tried to persuade Rauch to come out of the room, a fire inside prompted them to enter the unit.
Smoke from the fire filled the room and obscured officers’ vision when they opened the unit’s door.
Kirkwood fired three rounds from an ARWEN, which shoots plastic projectiles, at what he believed was Rauch’s torso. At least one round hit Rauch in the head. She died four days later as a result of her injuries.
On Friday, retired judge and former B.C. attorney general Wally Oppal found Kirkwood committed misconduct under the Police Act when he fired the ARWEN, because visibility into the room was “essentially completely obscured.”
Firing the ARWEN presented a “substantial risk of injury or death to Ms. Rauch,” Oppal said, calling it “reckless and unnecessary.”
Audrey Rauch said she recognizes the process has also been difficult on Kirkwood and does not want to take pleasure in “someone else’s misery.”
But she hopes the ruling and watching what Kirkwood has gone through will act as a deterrent for other officers considering firing an ARWEN, short for anti-riot weapon Enfield, in close quarters without clear visibility.
“An ARWEN is for use in a riot, a prison riot, something like that, not when you’re maybe 15 feet away from somebody… and you should not shoot when you can’t see,” Audrey Rauch said.
Victoria police Chief Del Manak said he was surprised by the decision but respects the process. “This has really been tough. It’s been tough on our officers. It’s been tough on the family. There are no winners in this,” he said.
Manak said the incident was “a dynamic scene like no other,” with fire alarms going off and officers wearing gas masks, making communication difficult, and smoke posing both a risk and challenge for officers.
“This was not an easy call. There was many, many variables at play, and the officers did everything that they thought was humanly possible to come to an outcome, and nobody wanted the outcome that we ended up with,” he said.
Manak said he would review the decision to determine if there are lessons to be learned.
The department updated its note-taking policy last year as a result of the investigations, and officers have conducted some training with firefighters, Manak said.
The lack of joint training was raised as an issue during the public hearing because firefighters and officers entered the suite together in what they call a “stack” formation, something they hadn’t done before.
A second allegation against Kirkwood related to his lack of documentation of the incident was unsubstantiated, Oppal found.
The public hearing was the first to be called under the Police Act into a person’s death. It involved “difficult and challenging circumstances” and identified concerns about the nature of the ARWEN deployment, Police Complaint Commissioner Prabhu Rajan said in a statement.
“The issues raised in this case were serious and connected to loss of life, and there was meaningful uncertainty as to what happened,” he said. “The various steps and time taken in this civilian oversight process was required to fully understand what occurred on that fateful day and to ensure the public’s confidence in policing. I am hopeful that lessons can be learned from this tragedy.”
Lisa Rauch was funny and loved her family, and could be challenging because of her mental illness, Audrey Rauch said. She was a talented piano player who could go years without playing and then sit down and play like no time had passed, said Ron Rauch, her father.
“She was interested in sports, loved friends, but mental illness got her and put her in the situation she was in,” Ron Rauch said.
Oppal will give his decision on appropriate discipline and recommendations at a future hearing. A date has not been set.
