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A Kelowna police officer who shot a driver in the arm after he attempted to pull him over for speeding will not be charged.

The BC police watchdog had recommended that RCMP BC Highway Patrol Const. David Gauthier be charged after it conducted an investigation into the 2019 traffic stop.

However, today, July 14, the BC Prosecution Service announced that it wouldn't be pressing charges against the Mountie.

The case dates back to December 2019 when Const. Gauthier spotted Philip Hakim driving a truck on Highway 97 near the Orchard Park shopping mall just after midnight.

The officer thought Hakim was speeding and only had one headlight, so he did a U-turn, put on his lights and siren, and followed Hakim.

Const. Gauthier hit 133 km/h at some point before Hakim turned right at Spall Road.

The dispatcher told the RCMP officer that the plates on the car were inactive and at one point Const. Gauthier drove briefly at 150 km/h as Hakim headed onto Highland Drive.

The officer's supervisor told him to stop the pursuit and he turned his sirens and lights off, slowed down, but still continued to follow the truck.

The truck ended up at a dead end in a cul-de-sac.

The media release says the police vehicle was now facing the truck, and the scene was caught on the cop car's camera.

Const. Gauthier got out of the police cruiser.

The RCMP shouted, "stop right there" twice, but the truck rolled forward and then began accelerating.

Const. Gauthier fired two shots at the vehicle hitting Hakim in the upper right arm.

He arrived at the hospital several hours later telling staff he was shot during a robbery and not to call the police. He had surgery to remove the bullet.

The truck's passenger later told investigators that the vehicle had no insurance, which is why Hakim didn't stop.

The lengthy media release from the Crown Prosecution Service goes into precise details about why prosecutors concluded that the evidence does not meet its charge assessment standard.

"Given the speed of events, the evidence is sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt that the (RCMP officer) believed he was at risk of grievous bodily harm or death from (Hakim's) vehicle when he fired two shots, and that the force used was necessary for his self-preservation. It is likely that a court would conclude that such a belief in all the circumstances was objectively reasonable," BC Prosecution Service spokesperson Dan McLaughlin said in the release.

BC Prosecution Service also says the camera picked up the Mountie saying "he tried to run me over" immediately after the events.

"The evidence supports that it would have been reasonable for him to infer that the driver of the truck was going to hit him," McLaughlin said.

The Crown also concluded that the officer's speeds were not "wildly beyond any safe standard" dismissing any dangerous driving charge.

While Karim was charged relating to the events that night, those charges were stayed by crown prosecutors in April 2022.

He did however take legal action against Const. Gauthier in December 2021. It's not known where his civil case it at.

It also appears that the events from that night haven't put him off driving fast and eluding police.

Court records show that two years after he was shot, he pleaded guilty in a separate case of dangerous driving, fleeing police, and resisting arrest. He is scheduled to be sentenced for those crimes later this year.

UPDATE: This story was updated at 1:05 p.m. Friday, July 14, 2023, to confirm that charges were stayed against Philip Hakim in relation to the night in question.

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