Man charged with manslaughter in 2022 prison death of Nicous D'Andre Spring
A man was arrested and charged with manslaughter Thursday in connection to the death of Nicous D'Andre Spring, the 21-year-old man who died in December 2022 following injuries at Montreal's Bordeaux jail.
Spring was illegally detained at the time of his death on Dec. 24, 2022. Guards placed Spring in a spit hood — a device intended to stop a person from spitting — before pepper-spraying him, according to the union representing the jail guards. He was later sent to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.
Sébastien Bossé, 54, is accused in Spring's death. He was released after appearing at the Montreal courthouse Thursday and is set to return to court at a later date.
The Sûreté du Québec, which made the arrest, isn't offering any information about Bossé, but La Presse has reported that he was a guard at Bordeaux jail. In the days after Spring's death, the Public Security Ministry said a manager at the jail had been 'relieved of his duties,' while declining to share his name.
The jail had been required to release Spring on Dec. 23, 2022, after a virtual court appearance that day, but instead kept him behind bars illegally. The 21-year-old Black man's death prompted accusations of systemic racism, including from his family and the Red Coalition, a Montreal-based human rights advocacy group.
'What happened to Nicous was not an isolated incident,' the Red Coalition said in a statement released Friday. 'It was the result of systemic negligence, poor oversight and a lack of humanity within a system that too often views Black lives as disposable. An arrest alone does not fix that.'
Spring's sister, Sarafina Dennie, reacted to the news on Facebook, calling for justice for her brother. 'They took my little brother's life inside a prison cell — somewhere he never should've been,' she wrote.
With files from The Canadian Press.
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