RCMP officers found to be in the wrong after arresting hiker near Fairy Creek

A report published by a police watchdog found that RCMP officers were in the wrong for arresting a man for simply hiking near Fairy Creek. 

The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP (CRCC) published a report of what had occurred and a summary of how the RCMP’s handling of this arrest was unlawful. 

RCMP had a heavy presence in the Fairy Creek area in 2020 and 2021 due to protesters trying to save old-growth groves that were to be logged by Teal Cedar Products Ltd.

Teal Cedar had acquired the rights to harvest 12 hectares of old-growth but protesters kept setting up obstacles and camps to prevent the trees from being cut down—some of which were 1,000-years-old.

An injunction was granted by the BC Supreme Court to Teal Cedar in order to keep protesters out and police were enforcing this injunction. 

During this time, in September 2021, a man was hiking along a forest service road in the Fairy Creek area and came upon an RCMP checkpoint.

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The two RCMP officers then told him and the friends he was with that they had to search their backpacks and the group needed to provide identification before they could go any further.

To this, the hiker said that this violated his rights against unreasonable search and seizure, and that the British Columbia Supreme Court had recently declared the RCMP’s use of exclusion zones for enforcing the injunction to be unlawful. 

Additionally, he stated he had the right to use the public road he was on and refused to leave when ordered to. 

The RCMP officers ended up arresting the hiker and one of his friends for obstructing a peace officer and transported him out of the area for processing. 

To this, the CRCC say the RCMP’s arrest of this hiker “groundless”, and furthermore, their demand to search him was “unfounded”. 

Additionally, the CRCC found that the broad exclusion zones to keep people out and checkpoints used by police were unreasonable.  

Another complaint by the man who was wrongfully arrested was that the RCMP officers had removed their name tags to avoid being identified.  

One of the RCMP members also wore a “Thin Blue Line” patch, which the hiker believed was in violation of RCMP policy.

The CRCC’s review of this incident concluded that:

• Searching people who seek to cross into what is an unreasonable exclusion zone violates their rights and freedoms
• It was unreasonable for RCMP members at the protest sites to remove their name tags
• The RCMP officer who wore the unauthorized “Thin Blue Line” patch on his uniform broke policy

The CRCC says that the RCMP Commissioner agreed with most of the findings in this report. 

Since, the Commissioner has committed to developing better policing policies that are more in line with recent court decisions regarding public order events and activism. 

Separately, the CRCC is conducting a full systematic investigation into the actions of the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) who came under fire for numerous alleged violations of protesters rights at Fairy Creek and throughout BC.