Alberta’s Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis says when former prisoners were quietly released from custody in Edmonton’s downtown recently, it came down to “human error.”
It comes after surveillance videos published by CBC and Global News earlier this month showed provincial corrections transport vans dropping off detainees in an inner city neighbourhood.
The videos drew concern and calls for reform from local officials, as well as residents and business owners in Edmonton’s Chinatown area.
Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack pressed Ellis Friday for details about what the province is doing to ensure similar drop-offs don’t happen again.
Ellis says he was outraged to learn of the two incidents in Edmonton, and said it wasn’t prompted by a directive from him.
But Knack, and Dylan Bressey, the head of the province’s largest group of municipalities, say the issue isn’t unique to Edmonton.
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Speaking to reporters at the Alberta Municipalities convention in Edmonton, Knack said he wants to work with the minister, but said there seems to be a gap in understanding.
“There’s a disconnect from what is believed to be the actual process and what is actually happening in municipalities across this province,” Knack said.
Ellis later told reporters at an unrelated news conference that dropping off former correctional facility detainees on to the streets is not a common practice.
“In both of those cases, it was human error,” he said again.
“We’re all human beings.”
Ellis, the former mental health and addiction associate minister, said everything he has worked on building as part of the province’s recovery-focused system has always been about a warm handoff.
“This is what I am vehemently opposed to, is just dropping people off where they have no supports,” he said.
Ellis said he has been told by Corrections Alberta that they will be taking measures to ensure the same drop-offs don’t happen again, but didn’t provide details.
Dylan Bressey, Alberta Municipalities president and city councillor in Grande Prairie, said it’s an issue in communities near correctional facilities across Alberta, including his own.
“They’re getting unloaded on our city streets where there isn’t adequate social services for them, and it’s creating social chaos as well as costing a lot of money and police, fire, and parks response,” he told reporters Friday.
He said he’s heard anecdotes from councillors in several communities, but they don’t have good data.
“For us, it’s really important that when somebody is released from either care or prison, that they’re released with a proper plan and the proper resources to help them be healthy and also receive whatever supervision or care they need going forward,” Bressey said.
When Ellis was asked about reports of similar instances in Grande Prairie, he said he wasn’t aware of them.
He said Corrections Alberta will drive people to wherever they need to go, which in some cases can be an hours-long trip to their home community.
Not the first time this has happened so someone should tell us ALL how did it happen again? Because we change POLITICIANS in elections and THEY change or ignore how things were done in the past – and THEY NEVER LEARN or REMEMBER THE PAST. From memory, the police used to get calls from people years ago of having a problem with a drunk so the police would go and pick them up and drop them off on the north side of the city because they would be sober or close to it by the time they got to downtown again or where ever they hung out. What else are WE supposed to do with all the people who drink to excess all the time and end up becoming a problem for us all. Jail them all? Being drunk is NOT a crime so no jail…. police got in trouble for doing this to a long time ago. Repeat of history.
And these are the only ones caught on video… how many others weren’t? It shouldn’t be hard to identify who the officers were. Could we please get a comment from them and not Pinocchio?
Not surprising such a pathetic excuse for intended actions from this govt
The only human error involved in this is that Mike Ellis was ever elected.
Human error my azz.
Try honesty for once.
Drop them off at Danielle Smiths house! Then you will see how quick action will be taken!
Does this include people being released from the Edmonton Remand Centre? Because if it is supposed to then I would say that there is a major issue. Remand releases with three things: have a ride, have cab fare or they are dropped off downtown near the main Police Station when the next shuttle leaves the facility. If this does not include them then the next question is why not?