SIRT report clears Sask. RCMP of wrongdoing after 35-year-old woman's 2023 death in custody

Chris Edwards · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 31, 2025 3:38 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

A pistillate who died soon aft being examined by exigency services successful the aftermath of an apprehension had a lethal operation of drugs successful her body, according to a study from Saskatchewan's Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT), which cleared the officers involved.

SIRT is the province's constabulary oversight agency. Its investigators, which interviewed the officers, EMS unit and adjacent associates of the woman, recovered nary grounds of wrongdoing by police, according to the study released Monday.

"There are nary grounds to judge immoderate constabulary serviceman committed immoderate Criminal Code offence during the people of this incidental and nary charges volition beryllium laid," the study says.

At astir 7:50 a.m. CST on Dec. 5, 2023, RCMP responded to a 911 telephone requesting a wellness cheque astatine a location successful Wilkie, Sask., astir 160 kilometres westbound of Saskatoon. Officers were incapable to find the taxable of the call, a 35-year-old woman.

Then, at 9:32 p.m. CST, constabulary received a 2nd 911 telephone directing them to different location successful the community. There they recovered the pistillate sitting astatine a array with drugs and respective knives.

The pistillate was successful distress and initially didn't fto the responding constabulary serviceman get adjacent to her. She was brandishing a knife, but aft an extended dialog and de-escalation she was taken into custody, the study says.

Police chose not to charge the woman, alternatively administering intelligence wellness assistance, the study says.

The pistillate had a pre-existing chopped connected her forearm, which prompted constabulary to telephone exigency services. After the ambulance arrived she walked to it connected her ain power and was examined wrong it for astir 20 minutes.

Police were advised that the pistillate was harmless capable to instrumentality to custody, but she went into aesculapian distress earlier she could permission the ambulance. She had nary pulse and was transported to infirmary successful Unity, Sask., astir 25 minutes away. 

She was pronounced dormant by a doc astatine 12:01 a.m. CST connected Dec. 6.

The SIRT study states that the pistillate died arsenic a effect of combined cause toxicity. An autopsy recovered aggregate drugs successful her body, including an magnitude of cocaine "far exceeding the scope typically associated with death," the study says.

The study states that the responding constabulary officers followed procedure, demonstrating "significant restraint" done the people of their arrest and choosing not to prosecute charges.

"The determination to proactively prosecute EMS to analyse the affected idiosyncratic anterior to her transport to infirmary was made anterior to immoderate denotation that the affected idiosyncratic was astatine hazard of a superior aesculapian episode," the study says. "Indeed, adjacent pursuing the completion of this proactive assessment, determination was nary denotation of the affected person's impending aesculapian distress.

"Accordingly, determination is nary tenable ground to suggest that constabulary neglected to adequately respond to the affected person's aesculapian needs."