Woman injured during 2024 Vancouver Island arrest was holding cigarette lighter

A woman who was injured while being arrested in Duncan on Vancouver Island in 2024 had been holding a “novelty cigarette lighter,” B.C.’s police watchdog now says.

According to the Independent Investigations Office (IIO), on Nov. 29, 2024, the RCMP received multiple 911 calls reporting a woman waving a handgun in the air and pointing it at passing vehicles.

When Mounties got to the scene, they tried to arrest her. She resisted, but police were able to handcuff her after using pepper spray, the IIO said in a report released Thursday.

“When the [woman] was told that she was being arrested for pointing a firearm and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, [she] stated that the item was a lighter that someone had given her as a present,” the report says.

“Police located the lighter on the ground, close to the spot where the [woman] had been sitting and noted that it was a lighter that looked like a real handgun.”

During the struggle with arresting officers, the woman suffered a shoulder injury, the report says. However, the IIO says, “There is no evidence that any blows were struck by the police during the [woman’s] arrest, but because of a concern that she may have suffered an injury to her shoulder in the course of the struggle to restrain her, she was transported to hospital, where it was confirmed that the shoulder had been dislocated, causing a fracture.”

In July 2025, the IIO cleared the RCMP officers of wrongdoing. However, because the police investigation was still ongoing, it wasn’t able to release any further information at that time.