Officers cleared after woman who overdosed in jail cell left with 'cognitive impairments'

The provincial police watchdog has cleared officers from the Orangeville Police Service of any criminal wrongdoing after a woman overdosed and had a seizure in a holding cell last year, leaving her with "cognitive impairments."

In a decision released Tuesday, Special Investigations Unit (SIU) director Joseph Martino said the woman should have been more thoroughly searched after her arrest and officers should have called for help sooner — but he stopped short of saying police were negligent.

"There is no doubt that the officers who had dealings with the complainant during her time in custody were duty bound to care for her," Martino wrote in his decision.

"Regrettably, it seems the care the complainant received was not all that it could have been or, perhaps, what it should have been."

It all started one evening in June last year, when officers were called to an address in Orangeville for a suspected drug overdose. According to the SIU, it was "well known to be a common drug house."

Paramedics tended to a man who had overdosed, while officers "investigated the other occupants of the house," the SIU says.

An officer discovered there was an outstanding arrest warrant for a woman in the home, who is not named in the report. According to the SIU, she was wanted "in relation to several shoplifting matters." She was also the person who had called 911 about the man who was overdosing.

"The complainant stated it was 'bullsh-t' that she had been arrested, given that she was the person who had called 911," the report reads.

Canada does have some legal protections for people who witness or experience an overdose and call for help, dubbed The Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act. That act doesn't, however, protect anyone from prosecution on outstanding warrants outside simple possession of drugs.

Woman put in jail cell

The woman was arrested and taken to police headquarters. According to the SIU, the woman admitted she had a bottle of wine and four beers that day, and ingested several prescription medications and $40 worth of crack cocaine. She didn't appear to be in any distress, the report says.

An officer was going to search her, but the woman protested, and said a female officer was supposed to conduct searches on women. No women were working that night.

Officers had the woman pull her clothing away from her body and shake it out, as well as pull up her dress so they could inspect her underwear. She was then put in a cell just before midnight on June 1.

Around 1 a.m., an officer told the woman she was going to be charged with failing to comply with a probation order, and would be taken to court in the morning.

"The complainant said something about Monday, and the [officer] responded, 'No, that's what we're doing.' He then departed the cell area," the report reads.

The woman then got upset, and started yelling, cursing and punching the walls of her cell. Over the next hour, she paced around her cell, continued to yell, and even banged her head off the wall, according to the report.

At 1:50 a.m., the woman sat on the toilet, and later reached between her legs and stood up holding a plastic bag containing white powder, according to the report.

The woman could then be seen on security camera video repeatedly inhaling from the bag. She talked about cocaine and getting high, and then at one point, yelled out for the officers.

At 1:53 a.m., an officer entered the cell area to ask the woman what she was doing and what she had in her mouth. She flushed the plastic bag and responded "cocaine."

'I'm scared'

Over the next little while, the woman got more animated. She took off her dress, and at some points started screaming and jumping around the cell. At 2:12 a.m., an officer came to the cell and asked what she was doing, but left again.

"The complainant ran around the cell as though something was chasing her," the report reads. "At 2:19 a.m., while standing at the cell door she called out, 'I'm sorry, I'm really sorry.' She continued to apologize. The hallway door opened, and a police officer told the complainant they were going to take her up to the hospital. The door then closed."

An ambulance arrived at 2:26 a.m.

"At 2:27 a.m., the hallway door opened as the complainant was running around the cell," the report reads. "A paramedic's gloved hand could be seen at the hallway door. At 2:28 a.m., someone asked, 'What's going on there, girl?' It sounded as though the complainant responded, 'I'm scared.'"

At 2:33 a.m., roughly 40 minutes after the woman first snorted from the bag, paramedics brought their stretcher into the cell area. As that was happening, the woman fell to the floor and started shaking, "apparently suffering a seizure," according to the report.

The woman was rushed to hospital, where she was placed on life support. "The drug overdose appears to have left the complainant with cognitive impairments," Martino wrote in his decision.

Still, he said, he did not find grounds to charge an officer with any criminal offence in connection with the woman's arrest and medical condition.

"The circumstances were such that professional medical attention ought in my view to have been secured sooner than it was," Martino wrote. But he also noted that the officers "did not sit on their hands," and said she was monitored closely.

Martino also ruled that the officers "probably should have done what was necessary to ensure an effective pat-down search," even if that meant bringing in a female officer from another police service.

However, he said, the woman probably had the bag of drugs hidden in an orifice, and the officers likely did not have the legal grounds to conduct a strip search or body cavity search.

"I am unable to reasonably conclude that the [subject officer] or the other officers who dealt with the complainant transgressed the limits of care prescribed by the criminal law," Martino wrote.

adam.carter@cbc.ca