Police are not to blame for the death of Fort Saskatchewan food bank director Kassandra Gartner, according to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team.

Gartner was struck and killed by a vehicle fleeing from RCMP near Beaumont on Feb. 24, 2024. Gartner was in the way of the suspect vehicle because she stepped out of her own vehicle after running over a tire deflation device (TDD) placed in order to stop the suspect.

The ASIRT report, released this week, focussed on the police decision to deploy a tire deflation device, and concluded “there are no reasonable grounds to believe that any officer committed an offence.”

The RCMP officer that deployed the device was acting reasonably, given the circumstances, the report adds.

“While civilian vehicles drove over the TDD before (the suspect) did, this was due to the darkness of the roadway and that (Gartner’s) vehicle, the first civilian vehicle, was a larger vehicle and was mistaken as the approaching U-Haul,” the report states.

“Even if (Gartner’s) vehicle was not large, the deployment of it at the time he did was still reasonable under the exigent circumstances of the situation (a large truck coming in his direction and having already rammed two police vehicles).

“It would have been too dangerous for (officer) to have waited near the roadway to ensure that only the U- Haul was the approaching vehicle before deploying the TDD.

“As such, (officer’s) conduct was not the type of conduct that would be a marked and substantial departure from what a reasonably prudent police officer would do under the circumstances.”

More than 300 people attended a special public memorial for Gartner a week after the crash. Gartner was with the food bank for eight years, first as a volunteer and then as executive director for three years. Under her leadership, the food bank expanded into a new warehouse location in the Eastgate industrial park.

A Kassandra Gartner Memorial Fund was established in her name to go toward the food bank capital fund.