Police acted reasonably in death of man during well-being call in 2019: inquest report

CTV News

2 hours ago

An inquest report into the death of a man over five years ago following an encounter with Winnipeg police says police and emergency officials did the best they could in the circumstances, and there was nothing they could do differently to save the man.
Aaron Ross, 29, died on Sept. 30, 2019, one week after officers responded to a well-being call near the riverbank on Assiniboine Avenue near Kennedy Street.
According to the inquest report, Ross was observed to be naked and behaving erratically and tried to head towards the river. Officers restrained him and handcuffed him while waiting for the Winnipeg Fire and Paramedic Service to arrive.
During the incident, Ross became unresponsive and needed to be resuscitated at the scene. He was taken to hospital, but it was found he suffered a catastrophic brain injury when he went unresponsive. He died in hospital a week later.
In her decision, Judge Sandra Chapman said police officers and paramedics all did the best they could with the training they had.
'In this case, there is no evidence that the police or medical personnel could have done anything more than they did,' she wrote.
An autopsy found that Ross had methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death, and his cause of death was determined to be an 'anoxic brain injury' linked to the cardiac arrest and the 'excited delirium' he was experiencing at the time. Excited delirium sees a person's adrenaline increase to the point that their heart rate goes up, and it could induce cardiac arrest. It added that the 'physiological stress of struggle and restraint by police' was a factor in Ross' death, but was not related to the immediate cause of death.
'The officers only intervened with Mr. Ross when his safety was in question and did so in a manner that was the shortest time possible,' Chapman wrote. 'There is no evidence to suggest that they used any excessive force while restraining Mr. Ross. And all evidence suggests the force used was reasonable in the circumstances.'
The report noted police training stipulated that officers should not physically engage with an individual experiencing an agitated chaotic event—a term WPS now uses in place of excited delirium—to keep them as calm as possible until a medical team can arrive.
The independent Investigation Unit cleared police of any wrongdoing in 2021.