A district court judge has sided with a conservation officer over a controversy in the land of the Okanagan Band of Indians over night-time scuba diving. In his June 23 ruling, Judge Jeremy Guild found the testimony of conservation officer Micah Kneller more credible than that of Michael Tom. Tom and his relatives who were in his truck at the time agree that they were hunting in the OKIB reserve on November 16, 2019. Another member of the band called the conservation, and Kneller responded, testifying that he spoke to the driver and grabbed a loaded rifle. “At this point, the versions of events differ significantly between the Crown and the defense,” Gild wrote in his judgment. Kneller said Tom and a relative who only identified himself as Mr. Bonneau acted in a threatening and aggressive manner, forcing Kneller to leave and call the police for support. The Crown claimed that Tom refused to identify himself and prevented Kneler from performing his duties. He was accused of obstruction under the wildlife law. Tom, however, testified that he had no interaction with Kneller and argued that the conservation officer had no authority in the land of the First Nations. Coming to the scene on a muddy dirt road, Kneller testified that he saw a light flashing fast, sweeping the hillside. “He found a blue truck with a light coming out of the muddy track towards him. He turned on the emergency lights and stopped the vehicle … He went to the driver’s window, which had been demolished. He smelled a drink and saw a shotgun. “A high-powered rifle with a viewfinder on it, with the barrel pointing to the floor, between the driver and front passenger,” the Guild wrote. He asked the driver to open the bolt and a bullet was fired from the chamber, while more bullets were visible in the rifle. Two women and a man were sitting in the back of the cabin. Empty cans of beer appeared in the vehicle. Kneler said that Tom got out of the truck (which he denied), insulted him, pointed at him and shouted at him “to get off the ground because he had no jurisdiction”. After Bonneau reunited and the two of them moved angrily towards him, Kneller left for his own safety, taking the seized weapon and summoning the RCMP. The blue truck left and a little later Kneller came on the truck parked on the opposite side of the road, blocking his way as the police gathered nearby with drawn weapons. Kneller arrested Tom and handed him over to the police, who eventually managed to find out his name. “Although he conducted thousands of such surveys during his career, especially in northern BC, he was always able to de-escalate a situation and complete his investigation. He never had to disengage as he did tonight.” , wrote Gild. Tom admitted that all five were chasing in the spotlight. “From his point of view, since no shots were fired, they did not hunt, but used lights to look for animals and that if they saw one they would have shot it,” the judge wrote. Tom claimed it was legal to hunt in a light reserve ground and said he was an experienced hunter, but that the regulations did not apply to OKIB land. The Guild found that Tom and his relatives changed their testimony from time to time, which “did not help the defense’s narrative.” “There is no doubt that the police responded to (Kneller)’s call and attended with numbers and force. I conclude that they would not have done so if the interaction had been peaceful and not confrontational, as the defense witnesses claimed, no matter what. helped complete Mr Kneller’s investigation by taking the names of those he thought were involved in the hunt in violation of wildlife law … “It would not make sense for Mr Kneller to fabricate a story, to immediately call the police to support that fabrication, then to go to court and testify himself, all to convict someone he did not know and did not he could identify until the police found him. Mr. Tom to give his name. This supports reliability. In other words, there is nothing to diminish Mr Kneller’s sincerity and accuracy. “
