No charges recommended for Edmonton officers in 2021 overdose death: ASIRT

Alberta’s police watchdog has found that Edmonton Police Service (EPS) officers were not at fault for the overdose death of a man while he was in custody in 2021.

In the early hours of Feb. 6, 2021, a man in custody at the EPS Southeast Division was found unresponsive and, minutes later, declared dead. His cause of death was carfentanil and methamphetamine toxicity, said an Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) news release.

The man had been arrested for public intoxication the evening prior after six EPS officers responded to reports of a family fight at a residence.

He was reported to have and later confirmed to have had a sawed-off shotgun, ASIRT said. He was arrested by two of the officers after they learned the man was bound by a firearms prohibition.

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The other four officers, ASIRT noted, had no further interaction with the man once he was arrested.

Once in the police vehicle, police report the man began hitting his head against the window and kicking the backseat of the car. He was taken to the EPS Southeast Division at 7:48 p.m., searched and put in a holding cell at 8:13 p.m., to be monitored by a civilian guard.

Between that time and 3:05 a.m. the next morning, ASIRT says video footage confirms the man can be seen moving his right foot, arms, stomach and chest as though he was breathing.

At 5:55 a.m., another EPS officer and the guard went to give the man a sandwich, which is when his head was seen falling backwards. Someone in video footage began shaking him without response and two minutes later a second EPS officer came in and began doing chest compressions. Emergency services declared the man dead just after 6 a.m.

While attempting first aid on the man, the first officer told investigators there was a small brown pebble lying beside the man, which did test positive for carfentanil and methamphetamine with a spectrometer.

ASIRT’s investigation involved the EPS officers at the initial arrest as well as the two watching the cell and the civilian guard.

Investigators determined there was no reported use of force during the man’s arrest and he had further been acting co-operative and was not thought to have any injuries nor any drugs on him when he was searched before being placed in a cell.

ASIRT also said the officers watching the man in the cell had fulfilled tzheir duty to check on him in 15-minute intervals and had acted “quickly and properly” when they realized he was in medical distress.

Ultimately, ASIRT found the man’s death to be untimely and tragic but said there were no reasonable grounds to believe any officers had committed an offence.