Alberta's police watchdog says two officers who shot and killed a suspect in 2020 during a "high-risk" vehicle stop in the Crowsnest Pass acted reasonably.

CBC News previously reported that in February 2020 a man died after Mounties tried to stop a vehicle in Blairmore, Alta., and fatally shot the driver during an ensuing confrontation.

Alberta's Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) said Thursday in a report that the driver was a 30-year-old man but did not release his name.

ASIRT said RCMP were called by an off-duty officer to a Home Hardware store in the Crowsnest Pass community on Feb. 11, 2020.

The report said there was a truck parked there that was believed to belong to an "armed and dangerous" man who was a suspect in a series of local break-ins and thefts.

Two officers responded to the call. They pulled up behind the truck and asked the man to get out of the vehicle, the report said.

The officers then used their vehicle's loud hailer to tell the man he was under arrest.

In response, ASIRT said, the man reversed his vehicle and almost ran over one of the officers.

The other officer shot at the man, who started driving around the police car. The second officer who was almost run over then also started shooting at the man. The vehicle crossed the road and went into a ditch, where it came to a stop.

An autopsy revealed the man had been shot eight times, ASIRT said. He died of gunshot wounds.

"The subject officers were in a dynamic situation where both of their lives were in danger," the report read.

"They responded with lethal force over a period of less than 36 seconds … the use of force by both subject officers was proportionate, necessary and reasonable."

ASIRT concluded there are no reasonable grounds to believe either of the officers committed a criminal offence, and the force used by the officers was "proportionate, necessary and reasonable."

However, ASIRT noted there was also a danger to bystanders "such as the people inside the Home Hardware."

"Many people walked through the front door of that Home Hardware that day, including one minutes before, and after, the officer-involved shooting. There was a bullet hole in the door frame."

ASIRT investigates events where serious injury or death may have been caused by police, as well as serious allegations of police misconduct.