A Surrey police officer has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the Independent Investigations Office (IIO) today.
The incident that the IIO was investigating involved a Surrey police officer who had allegedly injured a man during an altercation on 135A Street on Oct. 6, 2025.
The incident met the threshold of “serious harm” and the IIO started their investigation into the altercation.
In the IIO’s report, the officer stated that he was patrolling the area when he saw an argument happening between a man and a woman on the sidewalk.
The officer pulled over his vehicle and attempted to intervene in the altercation, states the report.
According to the officer’s narrative, the injured man refused to comply with commands and escalated the situation, resulting in a physical altercation where the injured man hit the ground and hurt his elbow.
The IIO gathered witness statements from the woman involved in the alleged argument and another witness who was nearby, along with four other police officers, audio recordings of police radio transmissions, CCTV footage from a nearby building, and medical information.
In the IIO report, the witness who was in the argument with the injured man stated that the incident happened because she had accused the injured man of stealing food from her. They were “yelling and screaming” at each other when the officer stepped in.
The witness said that the injured man did not respond to the officer’s commands and after “[he] got serious with the officer, the officer took him down.”
“The next thing I know, they’re on the ground tussling,” read her statement.
A second witness stated that he saw the officer approach the arguing man and woman and the injured man did not listen when the officer asked him to step back and “flailed his arms.”
Both witnesses seemed to back up each other’s statements that the officer was reacting appropriately to the injured man’s actions, states the report.
The man’s elbow was hurt when the officer took him to the ground.
Radio transmissions from the time of the incident showed that while in the altercation with the injured man, the officer called for assistance from a second unit as the man was “getting up in” his face and “making life a little bit difficult” for him.
After the IIO reviewed all available evidence, they found that the officer did not “attack” the injured man.
The man was ordered to step back, and due to him not complying, the officer used “a limited degree of force that was necessary and reasonable in the circumstances.”
The investigation is now closed.