Crown prosecutors aren't recommending any charges against the St. Albert RCMP officers who arrested a 16-year-old resident, who is non-verbal and autistic, when he was playing at a local playground in October of 2022, however, Alberta's police watchdog “found reasonable ground to believe an offence had been committed” by the arresting officers.
An investigation report released today by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) explains the teen was playing in the playground near Albert Lacombe Catholic Elementary School just after 4:00 p.m. on Oct. 2, 2022, when RCMP received a 911 call from a resident who said there was somebody at the playground who “either has a severe handicap and should not be left alone or is tripping on some drugs and should not be here alone.”
According to the report an officer arrived at the playground and tried to speak with the youth shortly after receiving the call, and the officer told investigators the youth “either ignored him or repeated things.”
Shortly after the officer arrived the report explains the youth then left the park, and the officer checked the license plates of vehicles in the attached parking lot where he found a plate associated to an individual that the officer “recognized as a drug user who lived in the area.” The officer “then thought that the person he had just deal with (sic) was [the youth].”
The report then explains a short time later the youth returned to the playground, after which another resident called the RCMP. This time three officers responded, and the youth was placed in handcuffs and put in the back of the officer's car.
“The [youth] kicked the door and hit his head against the partition between the seats repeatedly,” the report reads. “The [youth] was extremely agitated throughout the drive to the detachment.”
After the youth was taken to the detachment, at about 6:00 p.m., he was placed in a cell, where he “paced in the cell and pounded his fists on the door” and “hit his head on the cell door four times.”
About 30 minutes later, five officers and two paramedics entered the cell, according to the report, and “the officers held him down by kneeling on him.”
The report then says that the paramedics refused to speak with ASIRT's investigators, “but medical records show that a sedative was administered at this time.”
“Paramedics transported the [youth] to a hospital, arriving at 7:26 p.m. His injuries were mild swelling to the front of his head and redness on his wrists.”
“At 7:28 p.m., RCMP dispatch aired that the [youth] was reported as missing.”
According to the report, the arresting officer said the “grounds for arrest” of the youth were “the yelling, flinging of arms, and erratic behaviour, the obsession of the repeating words over and over, and a grown adult in the playground, as well his pupils appeared dilated.”
The officer also told investigators that he didn't arrest the youth solely because he thought the youth was the “drug user” that the officer thought he was.
“He said he would have arrested anyone who was acting in that way, who was intoxicated, and who was bothering other users of the park,” the report reads.
Investigators found that all of the officers involved thought they were dealing with specific known drug user, whereas three civilian witnesses who were interviewed “who observed the [youth] recognized that he could be or was likely neurodivergent.”
“There were therefore reasonable grounds to believe that an offence may have been committed by the subject officers,” the report reads, adding that the Police Act therefore required ASIRT's investigators to refer the case to the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service (ACPS) for them to provide an opinion on whether or not charges should be laid, and ACPS recommended no charges.
“Relying on the opinion of the ACPS, no charges will be laid against the subject officers.”
The specific charges ASIRT's investigators found could be applied against the officers were unlawful confinement for arresting an individual without proper grounds, and assault if use of force was used to make the arrest.
