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The Crown cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Burnaby RCMP officers used excessive force against a man on June 4, 2014, according to the criminal justice branch.

And therefore, B.C.'s prosecution service has announced that no Mountie will be charged in connection with death of the man, who was 6'5" and weighed in excess of 300 pounds.

The fatality occurred after he was taken to the ground with the help of conducted energy weapon. Three officers and two civilians restrained him, according to a statement issued today by the criminal justice branch.

The statement also noted that a forensic pathologist had attributed the cause of death to "combined effects of cocaine toxicity, means of restraint and cardiomegaly (enlarged heart)".

The pathologist's report stated: "An enlarged, dilated heart can predispose a person to cardiac arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats) and sudden collapse, which may be precipitated by a stressful situation such as confronting means of restraint."

According to the criminal justice branch's statement, residents said that the suspect had "smoked a large quantity of crack cocaine and also had been drinking heavily in the hours before police were dispatched to the scene".

"At various times before police arrival he exhibited signs of distress and/or erratic behaviour, including appearing extremely jumpy and agitated, exhibiting fast and heavy breathing, walking into a closed balcony glass door and smashing the glass, 'freaking out',' 'spinning around...like he was going wild,' alternating between lying on a bed and running in the hallway to grab hold of another occupant by the shoulders with a great deal of strength, and his face starting to bulge and turn purple."

The civilian director of the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. forwarded a report to Crown counsel following an investigation.

"The only act or 'maintaining' of physical force that might potentially attract criminal liability in these circumstances was the failure or refusal to move the handcuffs (from behind to the front), or to remove them entirely in a sufficiently timely way to make it easier to perform CPR on the suspect," the statement reads. "The context in which the requests to remove the handcuffs were made is significant in determining the reasonableness of the officer's actions in response. The requests were made of officers who moments before appeared to be in a life and death struggle with a violent individual, whose drug-induced behaviour required the physical efforts of 3 officers and 2 civilians in order to control him."

The statement from the criminal justice branch did not reveal the man's name or the address where the man died.