Calgary officer cleared of wrongdoing following 2020 death of man in police custody

Alberta’s police watchdog believes the death of a man while in police custody in April 2020 was not the result of how officers handled the man.

“It cannot be definitively determined whether these were sustained during the police restraint,” a medical examiner’s autopsy report reads.

But in a report published Friday, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) said questions around whether a change in policy, training or resourcing could have changed the outcome are better answered by an external process like a fatality inquiry.

In April 6, 2020, a woman in Calgary’s Erlton neighbourhood called 911 requesting medical assistance for her son. She said he was outside in the cold, was schizophrenic and was having a psychotic episode, believing he was on fire.

A neighbour in a second-floor suite previously told Global News the man had been shouting, which woke the neighbour up.

1:03 ASIRT investigating after man dies following encounter with Calgary police

Paramedics arrived and waited for Calgary police backup to arrive. When the first officer met them, the trio went to an open area in a condo complex and, according to one paramedic, found the patient face down on the cement.

“He was moving around on the ground, but he was not communicating with them. His mother stated that he was having some sort of psychosis,” the ASIRT report reads.

The paramedics tried helping the man to his feet when he apparently lunged forward. ASIRT said the officer grabbed him and “took him down to the ground.”

The paramedics told ASIRT they didn’t see any injuries of concern that resulted from the takedown, and the officer held the man to the ground with one knee to his back.

One of the EMS responders noted the man was vomiting, and the first officer, who was joined by a second, moved the man out of the vomit.

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The four first responders moved the man to the ambulance to prepare to transport him to hospital. At the ambulance, the paramedics assessed the man and asked the officer to remove handcuffs that had been placed on him.

One of the paramedics said: “He might be coding,” and the EMS responders began performing CPR on the man, with the assistance of two other paramedics who were called in earlier.

While that was happening, the first police officer made a phone call to apparently update his supervisor.

In the call, he described his actions as a “hands-on take-down.”

“He was trying to get up and fight the whole time. So, likely excited delirium. He was non-verbal, snarling and growling at us. No taser, just hand-to-hand takedown,” the officer said, according to body-worn camera footage ASIRT reviewed.

The paramedics transported the man to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

During the autopsy, the medical examiner determined the cause of death to be “excited delirium” with schizophrenia and the struggle while under police restraint contributed but did not cause the man’s death.

ASIRT said some in the medical field have since questioned “excited delirium” as a stand-alone cause of death.

In a subsequent interview, the medical examiner “would now describe the immediate cause of death to be complications of schizophrenia; struggle during police restraint,” ASIRT said.

ASIRT said that since only the takedown was the only physical contact by the police officer, there are no reasonable grounds or suspicion to believe the Calgary police officer committed an offence.