Questions surround B.C. teen's tragic death in police custody

As he sits beneath the towering trees in one of the parks in Port Alberni, B.C., there is one memory that keeps coming back to Linus Lucas.

Six years ago he was standing at the finish line at Port Alberni's lone running track watching his niece Jocelyn George pull away from a pack of other children.

"The one thing I will miss is the surprise of seeing her run down the track," said Lucas.

"She just loved running, she was a little track star. I think it is one of those things that surprised everybody because nobody saw her do anything. Then we showed up at these track meets and she was at the finish line and, holy cow, she did really well."

Now, instead of cheering her athletics, George's family grieves her death.

The 18-year-old died at Victoria's Royal Jubilee Hospital the evening of June 24 after she spent a night in her cell at the Port Alberni RCMP detachment. According to the B.C. Coroners Service, she was first taken to hospital "in need of medical attention."

The Independent Investigations Office is now charged with trying to determine what role RCMP may have played in her death. Her family want to know if officers checked in on her while she was in custody and are asking to see any video footage that may be available.

• 18-year-old Port Alberni woman dies in police custody
• Family demanding answers after death of Jocelyn George in police custody

According to her family, she was apprehended on Thursday night for a "disturbance" and was left alone in her cell.

Her uncle said doctors found a mix of drugs and alcohol in her system.

"You hear cocaine, you hear meth, you hear speed, marijuana and alcohol," said Lucas.

"The amount of cocaine in her body just killed everything. We had talked about organ donation and the doctor said, 'You know what? We really appreciate this, but what she has taken has damaged her brain, damaged her heart, her liver, her kidneys — they're not recoverable."

The family is also asking for the investigation to include how police officers deal with people with addictions while they're in custody.

According to family, there were three key moments in George's young life that help explain how a sweet soul who made people laugh ended up in a police cell with hard drugs in her system that led to her destruction.

A tragic past

When Jocelyn was four, her father, Ryan George, beat 19-month-old Sherry Charlie to death. The toddler had only just been placed into George's custody by USMA, an aboriginal child-welfare agency, a month before her death in September 2002.

George was Sherry's great uncle, and had a record of violent behaviour. He was eventually convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He has since been released and attended his daughter's funeral on Wednesday.

"When he got sent off to prison there were a lot of questions, what's going on, why is this happening, where is he going and how long will he be there, and at that time [Jocelyn] was very young and it was very hard to say, 'This is what your dad did,'" said Lucas.

Family say Jocelyn began to withdraw after her first trip to visit her father in prison, at age seven or eight.

"It was just a really tough phase for her," said Lucas. "Every generation, every culture says you need to have a dad, a father in your life."

Family and friends say George found success and happiness in sport — on the track and the basketball court — but she changed again as she approached her teenage years.

Warning signs

Family described a change in the types of people Jocelyn would spend time with and an increase in peer pressure to drink alcohol. The darkest warning sign was on her 13th birthday when her mother, Claudette Lucas, found her passed out on a trampoline from drinking too much.

"It was the toughest part for our whole family to kind of watch the little track star, the little basketball star, go away," said Lucas. "At 13 years old my sister had to call an ambulance because she was passed out on a trampoline."

There was also a change in the amount of time she spent with her family. Her cousin Lee Lucas described Jocelyn as having a "different and special" relationship with every single person in their family.

But over time their "close family" was pulled apart by Jocelyn's reliance on drugs.

"The last few years of her life, I didn't know her. When she was young we were very close with her, she was a very sweet girl. She was always willing to help, she was always there any time family needed her," said Lucas.

Then, three years ago, Jocelyn went through another major change — she became a mother. Family say the birth of her son provided a new perspective on life and strengthened her own bonds with her mother. Just four months ago she had a second child.

Gone too soon

George's boyfriend, Christopher Cenmane, said he and George separated a month ago. Her family say it was around that time she transitioned from alcohol and marijuana to the hard drugs that were found in her system when she died.

Her family said the people she has spent the last few years of her life with were abusive toward her, both physically and mentally. But ultimately her uncle and many others around concede that the sort of anger and violence she was exposed to her entire life contributed to her tragic death.

"What we are trying to figure out is why she had all these people who were cruel to her around her. We really can't place it on how it began or why it started," said Lucas.

"In some ways I'm saying it's not surprising where she ended up, given our own family history. Both my parents are survivors of residential schools. You only know how to deal with things in one manner, and that's get angry and say what the hell is wrong with you, get your act together, and you are yelling.

"It just got her more determined to say, 'I don't have to deal with you and I will do what I want, just leave me alone,' and it just got harder and harder for us to deal with."

Now, it's a tragedy the family must deal with. The Independent Investigations Office often takes anywhere from a year to 18 months to conclude if officers did anything wrong in the incidents they investigate.

In this case, George's family want to know how long she was left alone in the RCMP cells. They also want to know why police didn't notify them that she was taken to hospital — they say they wouldn't have known if it hadn't been for the Aboriginal hospital worker who called to tell them. 

They want to know whether the girl who once found it so easy to run, and to laugh and who delighted in the company of others spent her final hours alone, needing help.