National Police Federation pushing back against criticism by the family of man killed by RCMP in Campbell River

The national union representing RCMP officers is pushing back against criticism by the family of a man killed by RCMP in Campbell River on July 8 in a statement that suggests Jared Lowndes’s own actions led to his death.

“We send our sympathies to the Lowndes family and friends following the death of Jared Lowndes last week,” Brian Sauvé, president of the National Police Federation, said in the statement.

“If Mr. Lowndes had not, however, evaded police, stabbed PSD [police service dog] Gator and injured an RCMP officer, and instead turned himself in to the courts to comply with a warrant for weapons offenses, he could be alive today.”

The union’s statement was “devastating” for Lowndes’s mother, Laura Holland, said Fay Blaney, a close friend and great-aunt to Lowndes’s children.

“She was furious. She’s so hurt. She’s so wounded with the loss of him to begin with,” Blaney said.

Sauvé also emphasized the need to avoid speculation or “inappropriate external influence” while an investigation is ongoing by the Independent Investigations Office of B.C., tasked with looking into incidents involving officers that result in serious harm or death.

The union did not make someone available for an interview Friday.

Lowndes, a 38-year-old Indigenous father of two young girls, was shot and killed on the morning of July 8 outside a Campbell River Tim Hortons, after an officer tried to stop his vehicle for an outstanding warrant.

A police dog also died in the incident, and the dog handler was treated for knife wounds, the B.C. RCMP said in a statement hours after the shooting.

The RCMP issued two more statements later that afternoon, detailing police dog Gator’s service and thanking the Campbell River community for its support following the dog’s death. Over the weekend, Campbell River residents came out to watch a procession of RCMP vehicles in honour of Gator.

Suggesting that if Lowndes had behaved differently he could still be alive, while stressing the need for due process during the investigation, is “really quite dissonant,” said David Black, an associate professor in the school of communication and culture at Royal Roads University.

“It seems that they’re getting out ahead of the facts. And, you know, it’s not for them to determine the outcome of this investigation,” Black said.

Black also criticized the RCMP statements mourning the dog as tone deaf, particularly at a time when the lack of value placed on Indigenous lives in Canada has been thrust into the national spotlight with the discovery of what are believed to be unmarked graves at former residential schools.

“Dogs are lovely things, but their lives are simply not equivalent to a human being, no matter how guilty or innocent, you know, that person is,” Black said.

The communication from both the RCMP and the police union is hurting a charged situation, Black said.

Lowndes’s family has said they believe the RCMP’s tributes to the slain dog have fuelled racist reactions to the man’s death. A memorial to Lowndes has been disturbed several times, with tributes from his daughters torn and signs placed face down.

In person and online, his family and friends have been told his life was worth less than the dog’s.

Sgt. Chris Manseau of the B.C. RCMP said he doesn’t believe the RCMP statement was tone deaf.

He said Gator was a beloved police dog and a member of the community.

The statements came from officers who were close to Gator and had worked with him for a long time, he said.

“I don’t think it was intended to make light of the loss of any other life. It was from the heart,” Manseau said.

- Victoria Times Colonist