No criminal wrongdoing by RCMP in death of man in police custody, says RNC

A Royal Newfoundland Constabulary investigation has concluded there was no criminal conduct on the part of RCMP officers in the death of a man in police custody in Happy Valley-Goose Bay in 2020.

And Newfoundland and Labrador's police watchdog, which oversaw the RNC investigation into the death, says it was done by the book.

In a press release Friday morning, the agency's director, Mike King, director of the provincial Serious Incident Response Team, or SIRT-N.L., said RNC investigators conducted the investigation properly and took all appropriate steps.

According to King's report, the RNC concluded there were "no reasonable grounds to believe that any officer or guard's actions constitute a marked departure from the standard of care expected of a reasonably prudent officer/jail guard in the circumstances. Therefore, there are no grounds to consider criminal charges of criminal negligence causing death."

King noted SIRT's role was to make sure the RNC's investigation "pursued all appropriate investigative avenues."

"There was no evidence of bias, tunnel vision or lack of objectivity on the part of the investigating agency," wrote King.

At the time of the death, said King, the RCMP immediately notified SIRT-N.L. but because the team was not yet operational, King asked the RNC to conduct the investigation with SIRT-N.L. oversight and review.

The RCMP said at the time that officers took the man into custody on a Thursday evening after responding to a complaint. The man was placed in a cell, police said, and was later found unresponsive. 

King's report, with the results of the RNC investigation, added further details to the 2020 incident but doesn't identify anyone involved. 

The report says RCMP officers responded to a complaint of an intoxicated male at a Happy Valley-Goose Bay service station at 6:59 p.m. on Dec. 17.

The man was found in a taxi and wouldn't get out of the vehicle. Officers said they could smell liquor and that the man slurred his speech and handed over a prescription when asked his name. 

One officer ran a police record check and found the man had a warrant for his arrest from the Halifax Regional Police Service and "several other release documents associated to him that had a 'do not possess or consume clause.'"

Officers arrested the man on the warrant and for breaching court orders. 

The report says an officer brought the man to the police station around 7:15 p.m. occasionally snoring during the ride. The man was placed in Cell 148 — one of two cells in the station referred to as the "drunk cells" — around 7:22 p.m.