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The Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team has cleared Swift Current RCMP officers after an in-custody death in May 2024.
"There being no grounds to believe an offence was committed by any police officer, SIRT’s involvement with this matter is concluded without referral to the Attorney General for Saskatchewan," said the conclusion of a SIRT report on the incident.
On May 5th, 2024, Swift Current RCMP received a request for a wellness check on a family member at 11:06 AM.
Police located the affected person at approximately 10 minutes after the call at a local hotel, where she refused assistance.
The 55-year-old was then taken into custody by police under the Mental Health Act and placed into an ambulance that was heading for the Cypress Regional Hospital.
While on her way to the hospital, the affected person went into medical distress and became unresponsive. She was admitted to the hospital but was pronounced deceased at 12:26 PM.
"Evidence gathered during the course of SIRT’s investigation conclusively establishes that the arrest of the affected person pursuant to The Mental Health Services Act was conducted without any use of force by police," the SIRT report stated. "The affected person has been placed into the care of EMS personnel prior to the onset of her ultimately fatal medical distress."
The autopsy examination concluded that the cause of the affected person’s death was cardiorespiratory arrest. The SIRT report noted it was possible the arrest had some impact.
"One of a number of contributing factors was noted to be the stress, both psychological and physiological, brought on by the affected person’s detention by police," the report stated. "In light of this finding, it is worth noting that any arrest, even one conducted without any use of force by police, may be stressful to the subject of the arrest by its very nature. It is further worth noting that prior to placing the affected person under arrest, the Subject Officer attempted to convince the affected person to attend for medical treatment voluntarily."
The report pointed to a family member's statement, the officer's history with the affected person, and evidence at the scene that contributed to the officer's decision to place the affected person into custody under the Mental Health Act.
"While the stress of being arrested, along with numerous chronic and acute medical issues, may have played some role in the timing of the onset of the affected person’s medical distress, as described above, that arrest was both based on reasonable grounds, and was reasonably conducted."
The investigation included several interviews with those involved and video footage from the in-car digital video (ICDV) system of one of the responding police vehicles.