Manitoba’s police watchdog says officers should not face charges after they Tasered and physically restrained a man who resisted arrest before he died.
The man was pronounced dead after he was sent to Winnipeg’s St. Boniface Hospital in critical condition, following an encounter with police officers last July, according to a report from the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba.
The report on the agency’s investigation is dated April 24, 2024, but was released Thursday. Roxanne M. Gagné, the agency’s civilian director, recommended no charges be laid against the officers who were at the scene.
“This is a tragic set of circumstances where [the man] had consumed cocaine and methamphetamine and would not comply with numerous police commands. A struggle ensued, and sadly [the man] died shortly thereafter,” Gagné wrote.
“In considering all the circumstances, I am satisfied that the use of force in this case was reasonable,” and the IIU has closed the investigation, she wrote.
A medical examiner concluded that the man’s immediate cause of death was acute intoxication from cocaine and methamphetamine, but a heart muscle disease as well as physical stress and restraint during his arrest were contributing factors, says the report by the IIU, which is mandated to look into all serious incidents involving police in the province.
According to the report, Winnipeg police said they were contacted by a car dealership owner about a stolen vehicle on June 30, 2023, after a man did not return the Honda Civic he took for a test drive earlier that day.
Officers spotted that car parked near a Manitoba Housing complex on Robson Street less than a week later, police told the investigative agency. They spotted a man in the vehicle and tried to arrest him, but a “use of force encounter” took place.
Police said officers used a stun gun on the man before he was taken into custody. He became unresponsive, leading officers to perform CPR and to administer “numerous” doses of naloxone before he was sent to hospital.
‘Huge, huge fight’: witness
The police watchdog’s investigators reviewed police notes, audio recordings and call history, as well as analyses of police Tasers, a Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service incident report and three videos that witnesses took at various points of the incident, the report says.
Seven witnesses and nine attending police officers were also interviewed.
One witness told investigators that on the morning of the incident, he looked outside his kitchen window after he heard yelling. He saw two officers struggling to get a man out of a parked Honda Civic, which was next to a parked van, according to the report.
He said the man put up “a huge, huge fight” and resisted police as they tried to get him on the ground, before one officer Tasered the man twice.
Another witness said he believed the man was “overpowering” the two officers, as he was pushing them and struck one on the chin, according to the report.
One witness took two videos of the incident. One appears to show two officers struggling to get the man to lie down on the ground, using verbal commands and using a Taser before another police vehicle arrived, the report says.
The second video shows three officers moving the man out from between the two parked vehicles, but it appears he still does not comply with their demands for him to lay on his stomach on the ground, the report says.
The video shows an officer Tasering the man from behind, before the officers push him up against the trunk of the Honda Civic and handcuff him. Officers finally get the man on the ground after tripping him before two more arrive.
Video from a second witness shows the two new officers help control the man, as the two initial officers “show signs of exhaustion,” the IIU’s report says.
The man is seen face down on the ground and moving, shortly before officers roll him over to perform CPR and administer naloxone as paramedics arrive.
Stun guns used repeatedly
Taser analysis showed that one of the officers who arrived initially fired her device 11 times, according to the report. One shot was partially effective and none of the rest succeeded in incapacitating the man, it says.
The other officer fired his Taser twice, with what the analysis showed to be an “intermittent connection and a partially effective deployment,” but it’s unclear whether they were effective or subdued the man, the report states.
The man “had considerable strength” and did not comply with police’s numerous demands, resisting arrest as soon as they told him to exit the Honda Civic, the IIU report says.
He tried to choke an officer before one of them punched him in the ribcage and also attempted to grab an officer’s Taser, she wrote.
Two officers were injured during the incident, the report says, including “swelling and soreness” to one’s face as well as bruises on her limbs and forearm.