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Crown prosecutors have dropped charges against three peace officers accused of negligence in the overdose death of a man in an Edmonton police jail cell.
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Mathieu Labrie, Jeffrey Mullenix, and Yi Yang were charged last year with failing to provide the necessaries of life after a 38-year-old man died in the Edmonton Police Service detainee management unit on March 16, 2020. It was later determined the man had consumed fentanyl smuggled in by another prisoner.
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The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) reviewed the case in 2022 and found the three men — who at the time were working as community peace officers (CPOs) — did not conduct the wellness checks required under EPS policy, including hourly “arousal checks” to see if the inmate was responsive. Video surveillance showed none of the peace officers on duty that day performed the hourly check between 8:30 a.m. and 1:42 p.m., despite their claims to the contrary.
ASIRT concluded it had no authority to recommend charges because all three men were peace officers, not police. It handed the case back to EPS, which charged the men in 2023 — by then, Yang had taken a job as an EPS constable.
All three were set to begin a month-long trial this week. The Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, however, said the charges were stayed last month.
“The Crown prosecutor recently received additional medical disclosure that resulted in the prosecutor determining that the charges could no longer be pursued,” ACPS spokesperson Michelle Davio said in an email. “As such, the matter was stayed on Oct. 4, 2024.”
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Davio did not elaborate on the information in the new medical disclosure.
2020 timeline
Police stopped the overdose victim just before 11 p.m. on March 15, 2020, for riding his bike on a sidewalk. When they learned he had outstanding warrants, the officers arrested him and transported him to an EPS cell block. According to ASIRT, the man was co-operative and presented no medical concerns.
Neither ASIRT nor police provided the man’s name. Court records identify him as Christopher Gillman.
Another prisoner was placed in Gillman’s cell just after 7 a.m. the next morning. After talking for half an hour, the second prisoner dropped a “white object” on the cell bench and went to check the window of the cell door. When he returned, he appeared to ingest some of the white object and lay on the floor, appearing to sleep.
Gillman did the same but appeared “unsettled” afterward, ASIRT said. He eventually lay on the bench facing the wall. At 8:13 a.m., he appeared to spasm twice before lying still.
ASIRT said a community peace officer walked past the cell every 10 minutes but “did not stop and look into the cell for any significant amount of time.” One of the peace officers finally noticed there was something wrong at 1:42 p.m. and came back with a paramedic. The paramedic began CPR and gave Gillman naloxone, but he never recovered. An autopsy determined he died from fentanyl toxicity.
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According to ASIRT, two of the peace officers told EPS detectives they conducted certain checks at certain times, which was contradicted by surveillance video from the cell block.
“The video showed that the CPOs on duty that day had not conducted a single arousal check on the (deceased) between 8:30 a.m. and 1:42 p.m.,” ASIRT assistant executive director Matthew Block wrote in his report. “The CPOs on duty that day did not follow EPS policy, and then CPO1 and CPO2 appear to have tried to hide this.”
Block said in criminal negligence cases involving police officers, “the standard is not one of perfection” and errors in judgment will not result in criminal liability “unless they reflect a marked departure” from how a “reasonable officer” would behave in the circumstances.
He also noted the officers who arrested the second prisoner would not have had legal authority to carry out more than a cursory search of his body.
“It is established law that reasonable grounds to make an arrest do not automatically convey the authority to carry out a strip search,” Block wrote. “Sadly, this means that, on occasion, a person may be able to successfully maintain possession of a controlled substance … when they are detained in custody.”
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While rare, prosecutors can revive charges that have been stayed and resume the prosecution within one year.
Gillman’s death will also be subject to a fatality inquiry, which has not been scheduled.
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