Police watchdog probes March case of woman who died in custody

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team is searching for people who saw a woman causing a disturbance in a Mill Woods restaurant last month.

The province’s police watchdog is investigating the death of a woman last month while she was in Edmonton police custody.

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) said in a media release on Tuesday that officers arrested her on March 26 at a Mill Woods-area restaurant after answering a call at 6:30 p.m. of a woman causing a disturbance. Witnesses there said the woman had been acting erratically, yelling and frightening customers.

ASIRT said officers called paramedics while at the restaurant to assess the woman, but she did not cooperate with them.

At 7 p.m., officers took her to the Edmonton Police Service’s Detainee Management Unit, ASIRT said. The woman acted erratically while being taken to the unit and was unresponsive when she arrived there, the release said.

Paramedics took her to hospital, where she died shortly after.

The Police Review Commission has directed ASIRT to investigate this incident as a Level 1 matter. Under the Police Act, Level 1 includes cases involving serious injury or death, or serious or sensitive concerns about an officer’s actions.

Anyone who may have witnessed the incident or may have video recordings of it are asked to call ASIRT at 780-644-1483.