The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team. Photo: APTN file
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, or ASIRT says police acted reasonably in the case of a Sucker Creek First Nation man who was arrested and later hospitalised for several days.
On Dec. 11, 2021 the Lakeshore Regional Police Service or LRPS received a call about an unnamed man on Sucker Creek First Nation who was at a residence and according to the report “was not wanted there, and was possibly breaching his release conditions.”
The man was supposed to be under house arrest in Edmonton, according to ASIRT.
Officers who responded to the call found the man sitting in a vehicle in the driveway. When they attempted to arrest him he ran off.
The report says he entered a nearby home where the woman knew him. She told him she did not want him there. The man went into a room and closed himself in with two young adults.The officer at the house was told that two kids were in the room with him.
The police officer decided not to wait for backup due to concerns about the man being in a room with children.
The police officer forced the door open and arrested the man. He was punched in the jaw and received two “strikes” to the head when struggling with the officer.
He was placed in a cell.
The man was not checked on for an 85 minute period and according to the report “There was a flaw in LRPS office video at this time which made the video of little to no use since it omitted the time where the AP was in distress while in cells.”
The man was treated with two doses of naloxone and airlifted to Edmonton.
He was treated in intensive care for “aspiration pneumonia, a broken rib, a partially collapsed lung and a complex infection,” according to the report.
While the report says it was “not reasonable” that a civilian guard left him unattended in the call for 85 minutes, ASIRT’s mandate does not cover the cell guard.
ASIRT found that the police officers involved used reasonable force in the situation.
“The connection between these injuries and the subject officers’ uses of force are unclear,” the report says.
