No charges for RCMP officers who arrested non-verbal autistic teen at Alberta playground
CBC
RCMP officers who arrested an autistic 16-year-old at a St. Albert playground will not face criminal charges even though Alberta's police watchdog says the teenager was mistakenly identified as a drug user and unlawfully detained.
In a report released Wednesday, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) detailed results of its investigation into the October 2022 detention of Ryley Bauman.
ASIRT concluded that charges of unlawful confinement and assault should be considered against the three arresting officers. The Crown, however, has declined to pursue a criminal case, citing the unlikelihood of conviction.
Ryley was arrested at a park near his grandparents' home, then detained in a holding cell, where officers tried to subdue the teen by holding him down with their knees.
"If a police officer arrests an individual without the proper grounds, they may be committing the offence of unlawful confinement. If force is applied in the arrest, the officer may also be committing an assault," Matthew Block, ASIRT's assistant executive director, said in his report.
"The [teen] was not intoxicated. He was a non‐verbal autistic youth."
Block said three of the four civilian witnesses who saw the arrest recognized the teen could be, or likely was, neurodivergent, a term used to describe people whose brains develop or function differently.
The officers, however, believed that Ryley was intoxicated, and mistakenly identified him as one of two men who lived near the park and were known to police.
"The subject officers all seem to have thought they were dealing with specific known drug users," Block wrote. "This appears to have affected how they treated [him]."
The officers' names were omitted from the investigation report.
The report doesn't name Ryley, who functions at the level of a seven-year-old.
No charges were laid against Ryley and none are being considered. His parents have spoken to CBC about the trauma he suffered during his arrest and their anger over a lack accountability for the officers involved.
In a statement to CBC on Wednesday, Aaron Krause and Laura Hawthorne said there should be repercussions for the harms their son suffered in custody.
"The damage of this decision is insurmountable to Ryley, and to our entire family," the statement reads. "These officers must be held accountable, and the system must change."