An Edmonton police officer and two former peace officers have been charged in relation to the 2020 death of a man who overdosed in a holding cell.

On March 16, 2020, a 38-year-old man was found dead inside a holding cell at an Edmonton Police Service detainee management unit. An autopsy determined he died of fentanyl toxicity.

An Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) investigation found last year that community peace officers on duty failed to complete required wellness checks on the man.

EPS then conducted its own review and sent findings to the Calgary Crown prosecutors' office for an opinion, EPS said in a news release Tuesday.

Former community peace officers Mathieu Labrie, 32, and Jeffrey Mullenix, 52, as well as EPS Const. Yi Yang, 35, have been charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life.

All three were working as community peace officers in the detainee management unit at the time.

Yang later joined EPS. She is currently on administrative leave with pay.

Labrie and Mullenix are not employed by EPS.

The 38-year-old man was arrested on outstanding warrants on the night of March 15, 2020 after initially being stopped for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk.

Just after 7 a.m. the following day, cameras from his cell appeared to show him using drugs that had likely been smuggled in, according to the ASIRT report.

The man eventually laid down on the bench in the cell, and about an hour after consuming the drugs, he appeared to spasm twice. No further movement was visible on the cell video past 8:15 a.m.

The ASIRT report says the video shows that between 8:30 a.m. and 1:42 p.m., the community peace officers walked by the cell every 10 minutes, looking in briefly as they passed. A community police officer brought in food for the detainees at 12:14 p.m., and the man remained motionless.

At 1:42 p.m., more than five hours after the man had stopped moving, a peace officer entered the cell and noticed something was wrong.

Two peace officers and a paramedic gave the man naloxone and performed CPR, but he couldn't be resuscitated.

EPS policy dictates that officers must do "arousal checks" on detainees every hour.

Mount Royal University criminologist Ritesh Narayan said the incident highlights issues about how people with addictions are treated.

"It's a huge failure," he said.

He said he would expect to see a civil lawsuit filed by the man's family.

EPS says it can't comment further because the incident is before the courts.