HALIFAX, N.S. - A corrections officer who helped restrain a mentally ill man moments before he died in a Halifax-area jail cell says his memory of what he did that morning is better today than it was two years ago when he gave a statement to the RCMP.
Michael Green testified today at an inquiry into the death of Howard Hyde, a 45-year-old musician who had not been taking his medication to deal with schizophrenia when he was arrested for alleged assault and taken into custody at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility.
Hyde died on Nov. 22, 2007, after two struggles with jail guards, which happened about 30 hours after he had been repeatedly Tasered by police as he tried to escape from a police station in downtown Halifax.
Green told the inquiry that when he gave his statement to the RCMP, he was "very emotional" in the hours after Hyde's death and he's not certain that he described the events he witnessed in the right order.
In particular, Green says he now has a more "vivid recollection" of the moment during the second struggle when Hyde's body went limp and he stopped responding to the officers trying to subdue him on the floor of the cell.
A medical examiner later concluded Hyde died from a condition known as excited delirium stemming from paranoid schizophrenia.
