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(KIM ANDERSON / iNFOnews.ca)

Two civilians have been chosen to oversee a police watchdog investigation in BC, more than two years after a man was found dead in Williams Lake RCMP detachment cells.

It's the second time the Independent Investigations Office of BC has ever taken on a First Nation monitor for an investigation, chief civilian director Ron MacDonald said.

When the investigation started in 2022, he said watchdog investigators met with the Tsilhqot’in National government representatives and they had questions about the investigation process.

"We heard their concerns surrounding historic mistrust of police and authority in general, which I understand," MacDonald said. "One of the things we spoke about is appointing a civilian monitor in the matter."

With the investigation nearly complete two Tsilhqot’in representatives chosen by the First Nation will go through the evidence gathered by investigators. They may make suggestions for the watchdog's general practices in dealing with First Nations, and they may suggest different investigatory avenues.

MacDonald's final report on the death and the civilian monitor report are expected to be released together.

On Oct. 1, 2022, a man taken into custody the night before died in his cell.

Williams Lake RCMP stopped him and a woman on a moped. BC's police watchdog didn't say why they were pulled over or why the man was arrested, but he was put in cells around 12:25 a.m., Oct. 1.

Around three-and-a-half hours later he was in medical distress. Paramedics tried but failed to save him and he died.

The IIO was notified and began investigating whether police actions had a role in the man's death.

Civilian watchdogs can be appointed if there is public interest for "additional" oversight into one of the investigations.

The last time an Indigenous monitor was appointed was in 2022, where the monitor gave notes but found no issues with the investigation or its findings. MacDonald said there was another investigation in which the IIO consulted with a First Nation community, but leadership turned down the option to have a civilian monitor.

MacDonald said the monitors are not allowed to disclose information from the investigation aside from those written in the final report. The ability to appoint a monitor, however, is the only way it can allow First Nation communities to have input in an investigation.

"In cases dealing with Indigenous communities, I think this is a tool to allow the community to have access and input into an investigation," he said, calling it a "positive feature" of the process.

The only other time a civilian monitor oversaw an investigation was in 2012, when responding to an internal complaint. An IIO investigator made several claims, including that the chief civilian director of the day had evidence removed from disclosure, "coached" evidence and had an anti-police bias.

The complaint was largely dismissed.

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