City police officers won’t face charges in custody death last summer

Manitoba’s civilian police watchdog is not recommending charges against Winnipeg police officers after a man became unresponsive and died in police custody last year.

Roxanne Gagné, civilian director of the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba, found the officers acted reasonably during the Aug. 7, 2023, incident, after reviewing evidence and facts presented to her.

Released Thursday, Gagné’s report said officers responded to multiple 911 calls about a man holding a large knife while running in traffic and acting erratically that afternoon.

When police detained the man at a home on Oakland Avenue, he was initially co-operative, and he told officers he had been doing methamphetamine throughout the night, the IIU said.

While waiting for an ambulance to arrive, the man was put in the back of a police car, where he became extremely agitated and started kicking the window and door.

The man’s family members, who were near the police car, became “very emotionally escalated,” so police decided to move the man a few blocks away in a bid to calm the situation.

As police removed the man from the car, they noticed he was unresponsive, the IIU said.

CPR was performed on the man, who later was pronounced dead at Health Sciences Centre.

The IIU said the man’s cause of death was determined to be acute methamphetamine toxicity.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca