Edmonton police chief promises internal investigation into arrests of people with epilepsy
Marion Warnica | CBC News | Posted: August 19, 2016 12:00 PM | Last Updated: August 19, 2016
‘It’s not a good thing, obviously’ said Chief Rod Knecht about controversial arrests
Edmonton police Chief Rod Knecht says internal investigations will be called in the case of two recent arrests targeting men with epilepsy.
"We'll get independent witnesses and obviously the individual that was impacted," Knecht said during a media event Thursday.
In two separate cases, men with epilepsy were arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer within a week of each other in Edmonton.
In one case, police say Neil Ryley head-butted one officer, breaking his nose, and bit another. Ryley claims as many as six police officers came into his bedroom and beat him before they called an ambulance and took him to hospital.
He said he doesn't remember what happened, but he did take pictures of bruises on his legs, arms, face and abdomen. No one else saw what happened.
I just couldn't believe that they were charging him with a criminal charge.
- Tracey Schimpf
In the second case, police say a man running naked near a school put his hand around an officer's neck. Officers twice used a Taser stun gun on him before arresting him.
CBC News has confirmed that both men have epilepsy. Each claims his actions were from symptoms related to a seizure. Lawyers for both men are in negotiations to have the charges dropped.
Defensive violent behaviour, hallucinations, disorientation and stripping are among the well-documented symptoms related to the 44 known types of epileptic seizures. Typically such behaviour is associated with the recovery phase, when a person is coming out of a seizure. Recovery can last anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours.
Knecht said he is sympathetic to the people involved, but wants to know more.
'It's not a good thing'
"I've gone to situations where there was an epileptic seizure and you thought 'this is a violent person.' And then you suddenly realize they're having a medical episode and you administer first aid," he said.
"It's not a good thing, obviously. If a person's having a medical episode and they think it turned into an assault or got charged. The devil is in the details."
Ryley's ex-wife called police to his home and heard the scuffle with police in the bedroom but did not see what happened.
"I said I need an ambulance, and if you bring the police also. Because he was raging at the time. I said 'You might have trouble controlling him,' " Tracey Schimpf said.
She said Ryley has had regular seizures for years, but demonstrates violent behaviour only about three times a year. In the past, police helped paramedics restrain him. But she added he was never criminally charged before.
"I just couldn't believe that they were charging him with a criminal charge when it was a medical issue and he wasn't aware of what he was doing."
CBC News checked Ryley's criminal record and found two criminal charges: a simple assault conviction in 2002 that resulted in a sentence of 18 months' probation and a traffic violation in the 1990s.
If you have information on this story, or others like it please email, in confidence: marion.warnica@cbc.ca
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