A criminal case won’t proceed for three former peace officers charged in a man’s 2020 death in an Edmonton police holding cell.
Jeffrey Mullenix, Mathieu Labrie and Yi Yang were each charged with failure to provide the necessaries of life after an internal Edmonton Police Service review of their actions the day a 37-year-old man died from a fentanyl overdose at the EPS detainee management unit.
An investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) found that the man, identified in Alberta’s fatality inquiry schedule as Christopher Gillman, lay motionless for more than five hours before an officer entered his cell to check on him.
The trio was scheduled for a trial to begin this week. But according to the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, the charges against all three were stayed on Oct. 4.
“The Crown prosecutor recently received additional medical disclosure that resulted in the prosecutor determining that the charges could no longer be pursued,” said ACPS spokesperson Michelle Davio.
All three people formerly accused in the case worked as community peace officers in the EPS detainee management unit.
When the charges were laid in June 2023, EPS said Labrie and Mullenix were no longer employed by the force.
Yang had become a police officer by the time she was charged. An EPS spokesperson said Thursday that she was a probationary constable, and is no longer with the service.
The circumstances of Gillman’s death are set to be examined in a fatality inquiry. It has yet to be scheduled.
ASIRT investigation
ASIRT concluded in 2022 that two peace officers hadn’t followed EPS policy for conducting checks on people in custody. The two peace officers were not named in the report.
“[The officers] told EPS detectives that they had conducted certain checks,” the report says.
“Video from the cell showed that they had not actually done these checks.”
Gillman had been stopped by police on March 15, 2020, for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. He was arrested on outstanding warrants and taken into custody to await a hearing where he would either be released or transferred to remand.
Just after 7 a.m. the next morning, another man was placed in Gillman’s cell. Surveillance video showed what appeared to be the pair sharing drugs that had likely been smuggled in, the ASIRT report says.
Gillman appeared to spasm about an hour after consuming the drugs, but otherwise lay on a bench in the cell, not moving.
The ASIRT report says video shows peace officers walking by the cell every 10 minutes, looking in briefly. By the time someone realized something was wrong and entered the cell, it was 1:42 p.m.
EPS policy requires regular checks on detainees. At the time, protocol was for officers to do a visual check from outside every 15 minutes and an “arousal check” every hour — verifying a person is conscious and speaking from outside a cell door, and if not, going inside to see if they’re in medical distress.
Holding-cell policy changes
ASIRT investigates serious injury or death in police custody, including the EPS detainee management unit.
But the actions of peace officers fall outside ASIRT’s mandate, so it didn’t make any recommendation about further action, leaving that up to EPS.
EPS spokesperson Cheryl Sheppard said in a statement that several changes have been made since the 2020 death.
The number of cells has been increased so that detainees are kept in custody alone, “minimizing the chance to transfer contraband,” Sheppard said. There’s also now a body scanner to reduce the chances of contraband being smuggled inside.
Sheppard said “biometric cell sensors” are in place to monitor detainees’ vital signs between regular cell checks, and immediate notification to a supervisor is required if a detainee doesn’t respond to an arousal check, “resulting in more timely medical intervention when required.”
