Inquiries are investigating the death of a man at the ferry terminal

A weeklong investigation began Tuesday into the 2018 death of a man who shot himself in the head at the Departure Bay ferry terminal just as police aimed several shots at his chest.

Jer Wood died on his 39th birthday, May 8, 2018, said his mother, Sharon Smallwood, who was the first to testify at the inquest at the Nanaimo courthouse.

At the time of his death, Wood was wanted in connection with a carjacking in Penticton and a shooting in the Vernon area.

Officers from the Nanaimo RCMP and the Island District Emergency Response Team were ready to intercept him as he drove off the ferry at Departure Bay.

Two officers shot at him as he raised a gun to his head, the Independent Investigations Office, B.C.’s police watchdog, later determined.

His mother said Jer Wood was born Jerry Robert Smallwood, a name he was proud of, but unbeknownst to his loved ones, he changed it.

They only found out about the name change when his body was taken to the funeral home, she said.

She said she believes the change was to protect his loved ones from his drug addiction, which he developed after coming off painkillers following a work-related back injury at a camp where he worked as a cook for about two and a half years. before his death.

He became addicted to street drugs containing fentanyl and methamphetamine, she said.

“He stayed away so we wouldn’t know and we thought, ‘Okay, he’s going to keep going,’” Smallwood said. “But he hid what happened because he didn’t want us to know, because I’m sure he thought we would be disappointed in him.”

That wouldn’t have been the case, she said.

“If we had known what the symptoms were, we would have done everything we could to help him,” Smallwood said. “In retrospect, we saw some of the symptoms but didn’t notice them at the time.”

This included a change in his personality, accompanied by frustration and depression from the pain, she said. She said he was also stressed about trying to reach a settlement with WorkSafeBC.

Smallwood said her son fled from the Okanagan to Nanaimo shortly before his death following the non-fatal shooting of one of the drug dealers who had supplied him with street drugs.

“I think he knew his life was coming to an end; he couldn’t get off drugs and he went after the drug dealers with a gun,” Smallwood said.

His girlfriend, Danielle Frost, testified that Wood was staying with her on May 6, 2018, and said he would have to deal with a person “who did something they couldn’t get away with.”

He said he would not go to jail afterward “and that the police would have to shoot him,” she said.

She said she assumed the problem was drug-related.

“I didn’t know what to think,” she said. “I didn’t know whether to take him seriously or not.”

He left the next day without saying goodbye and later called to say he had shot someone, Frost said.

She said she was shocked and did not contact police.

“I know where I went wrong in that,” she said. “I didn’t know he was going to go to the island and do what he did.”

Wood had guns for hunting, but she didn’t know he had a gun that he would eventually kill himself with, Frost said.

She also saw what she thought was a bulletproof vest but did not confront him, she said.

Penticton RCMP Staff Sgt. Scott Hanry, who helped investigate the case, testified that Frost told him that Wood had developed a heroin addiction because of his pain and was “tired of the struggle.” She said he had talked about committing suicide, he said.

Frost said Wood told her he didn’t use drugs to get high, but to take away the pain.

Smallwood said her son is deeply missed. “We miss our son in our hearts, our homes and our lives every day,” she said. “If we could just go back and change the outcome of his actions, we would give him another hug and all our love. He is remembered by his friends as a wonderful man, a charming, magnetic and caring person.”

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