The Coquitlam siblings of a man gunned down by RCMP officers last summer are calling for justice after what they say have been multiple delays by the independent police oversight body investigating the killing.
Kyaw Naing Din, a 54-year-old immigrant from Myanmar, was shot and killed by an RCMP officer from the Ridge Meadows detachment who was responding to a mental health call on Aug. 11, 2019.
Now, three weeks after the one-year anniversary of their brother’s death, the family is asking for a release of the report by the Independent Investigation Office of B.C.
Ridge Meadows RCMP was not immediately available for comment. However, in a call with chief civilian director of B.C.’s Independent Investigation Office, Ron MacDonald said the investigation has been completed and the final conclusions are in the process of being drawn up now, with public disclosure — which could clear the RCMP officers of wrongdoing or lead to recommendations of charges to Crown prosecutors — scheduled to take place in September.
Din had been on medication to manage his schizophrenia, and when he forgot to take it, he could become confused, said family members.
“I called 911 to ask for assistance to get my brother to the hospital for mental health support,” sibling Yin Yin Din told the Tri-City News from her sister Hla Myaing Din’s Coquitlam home. “It wasn’t the first time.”
When police arrived Yin Yin directed them to his room where he was sitting “peacefully and calm” in a chair next to his bed. But when Yin Yin told the two officers to wait for her three other siblings to arrive — hoping the presence of the older Coquitlam sister would get him to take his medicine — Yin Yin said police brushed aside her suggestion and said “we don’t need to wait for your brothers and sisters. We deal with people like him all the time.”
She moved out of the way, at which point one of the officers activated his taser gun and the other opened the door, she told the Tri-City News. She later recalled she heard three shots.
Siblings of Kyaw Naing Din explain the moments before he was killed by RCMP officers only weeks after the one-year anniversary of his death. The family called for the release of the IIO investigation from Coquitlam today. pic.twitter.com/4v01jbsUyc
— The Tri-City News (@TriCityNews) August 28, 2020
An Independent Investigation Office of B.C. press release the day of Din’s death said that officers reported to a call of a domestic complaint at 1:10 p.m. and that it was reported that “a male at the scene had a knife.”
“The police report said once they opened the door he attacked them with a knife,” said Yin Yin. “It’s not true. He was sitting with a bottle in his hand.”
“I was just a few feet behind the police officer. He didn’t attack them at all,” said the sister.
“There was no communication. They shot him in the face, in the throat, in the chest for no reason. This never should have happened.”
When older sister and Coquitlam resident Hla Myaing Din arrived at the home it was already too late. She told reporters at a press conference at her home Friday morning that she asked to talk to her brother but the police told her, “‘No, go away, move.’”
That’s when Yin Yin came to her and told her about the shots and thought he was dead.
“I was crying and crying, I just couldn’t believe,” said Hla Myaing Din.
“My brother liked the police. He admired them,” said sister Yin Yin Din, Hla Myaing Din later adding that when the family first came to Canada from Myanmar — a country that had long been embroiled in civil conflict — they never thought one of them would die at the hands of police.
Kyaw Naing Din’s family is hoping that charges are sent to the Crown once the IIO investigation is wrapped up. In addition, they are calling for the dismissal of the head of the Ridge Meadows detachment and the two officers involved in their brother’s death.
IIO head Ron MacDonald said the investigation has been delayed roughly a month due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, he said the number of investigations of police incidents involving death or injuring has surged 50% in over the last fiscal year, adding pressure to his office’s workload. MacDonald attributes part of that to increased public scrutiny of violent police encounters and the awareness on behalf of police that transparency is in their interest, something he calls “a good thing.”
“When there is the aura that the police has been involved in an incident [where someone was injured or died]… Even if there wasn’t a direct role, even it was seen they had a role, they report those,” he said.
Still, investigations of deaths involving police officers take the longest time to investigate, said McDonald, adding he aims to have them wrapped up within nine months to just over a year.
“You don’t want to rush it. You want to make sure it’s thorough,” he said. "I know the family is troubled [but] the whole story will be known."
Before assembled media Friday morning, the siblings described their brother as a gentle man, who was helpful in the home, and loving to his brother’s children.
Thant Din noted that using violence and threatening with a knife would be “out of character” for his brother.
“They put a label on my brother that he was mentally ill and armed with a knife,” he said.
Not having the results of the IIO investigation is making the family very, “anxious,” Yin Yin Din said, as she showed media photos taken after her brother had died, saying the photos proved evidence of “excessive force.”
“If they listened to my request and waited for the siblings to come, this would never have happened,’ she added.
“Every day my heart wants justice for him.”
