SUNDRE — The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) has been called in to investigate an incident in which a 72-year-old local man died from what police describe as “medical distress” after being involved in a “physical confrontation” in hospital in Sundre.
On Friday, Sept. 23, at about 10:54 a.m., RCMP responded to a 911 call from an Alberta Health Services peace officer to assist with what police describe as “a physically violent subject” in the hospital.
“Upon arrival, a physical confrontation occurred. Following the confrontation, the male subject went into medical distress,” RCMP media relations officer Cpl. Gina Slaney said in a news release issued yesterday.
At approximately 12:20 p.m., the man, a resident of Sundre, died in hospital.
As a result, ASIRT has been called in to investigate the circumstances surrounding the actions of police and the peace officer during the incident.
In addition, RCMP will hold their own internal review “to gather a full account of what took place during this incident,” Slaney wrote.
“RCMP training, policy, police response, and the duty status of the members involved will be subject to review,” she added.
Slaney said RCMP are “fully cooperating” with ASIRT and as a result of that investigation are not commenting further on the matter.
“The Alberta RCMP believes in processes that seek the facts and it’s important that processes taken to assess the actions of all those involved, including the police, are fair, transparent, and defendable,” Slaney wrote.
“This is why, as soon as we became aware of this incident, we immediately notified the director of Law Enforcement and initiated our internal review process.”
