No criminal charges in 2023 death of woman in Nunavik police custody

Quebec's Crown prosecutors are not pressing charges against the Nunavik Police Service (NPS) in relation to a fatality in a holding cell in 2023.

The decision released Monday by the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) came after an investigation by Quebec's police watchdog, the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI).

The fatality happened on May 25, 2023. 

Two police officers with the provincial police service, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), arrested a woman that evening, after reports of an intoxicated person knocking on people's doors in Inukjuak. 

"She was staggering and had difficulty speaking," and was brought to the police station around 7:30 p.m., according to the DPCP's written decision this week, that details what happened that night.

The two SQ officers left to respond to another call after the woman was put into a cell.

In the hours that followed, NPS officers at the station noted she was still breathing – at 8:30 p.m. when another cellmate was moved in, and again at 9:30 p.m., when that cellmate asked for water. 

But shortly after 10 p.m., the woman's cellmate said she was no longer responsive.

Officers tried to resuscitate her and called for medical first responders, according to body camera footage from one of the NPS officers. The defibrillator at the station, however, was not charged. 

Officers also found a quarter-full bottle of hard liquor in her pants.

The woman was taken to the medical clinic shortly later, but was pronounced dead at 10:40 p.m. The pathologist's report said she died from acute ethanol intoxication, which usually follows excessive drinking. 

Nunavik police procedures require officers to physically check on detainees at least every 15 minutes. The DPCP said it's not clear whether that happened in this case. 

But the DPCP also said there is no evidence of criminal conduct by the police officers involved.

That only happens under certain criteria, such as when an officer fails to provide the necessities of life, or if an officer's conduct was a "marked departure from what a reasonably prudent police officer would have done in the same circumstances," according to the DPCP decision.

This is the third case of an intoxicated person dying while in police custody in Nunavik between 2022 and 2023. The other two cases involve a woman from Akulivik who died on March 4, 2022, and a woman in Puvirnituq on September 30, 2022. 

The DPCP also investigated those incidents and found no criminal conduct by police officers.

Ongoing changes by NPS

In a written statement to CBC News, NPS said it's implemented several measures to better supervise detainees in recent years, including cameras in all cells. 

NPS said it's currently looking at other measures, like installing sensors which can detect fluctuations in breathing and heartbeats. That technology is already used by some police services in western Canada.

It's also looking at getting an independent agency to take over those guard positions. 

"That would ensure that there is always a civilian guard available for guarding, and it would remove an extra workload on our officers that are often forced to work long hours of overtime to guard detainees when no civilian guards are available," NPS said. 

In the past, justice advocates have called for a different approach to policing in Nunavik, such as through the use of mobile intervention teams. The Saqijuq model, currently in place in Puvirnituq, pairs social workers with police officers. 

NPS said it's looking at introducing the model to Kuujjuaq this year, and eventually in all 14 Nunavik communities. 

A report submitted to the Senate in 2018 by the Isuarsivik Regional Recovery Centre said the binge-drinking rates in Nunavik were three times higher than the rest of Quebec and Canada.