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Edmonton prisoner needed pills prior to guard scuffle and fatal elevator fall

JOHN COTTER, June 14, 2005

EDMONTON (CP) - A teen prisoner who fell to his death down a courthouse elevator shaft after tussling with guards had not taken his medication for severe behavioural problems for two weeks, a nurse told an inquiry Tuesday.

Sherri Roles was a psychiatric nurse at the Edmonton Young Offender Centre when Kyle Young, 16, was admitted on Jan. 19, 2004, after being arrested by police. Roles testified she met with the boy to determine if he was a suicide risk or posed a threat to other inmates.

"Kyle was very co-operative and calm and participated in the interview," she said. Roles noted the youth said he was doing well and seemed to accept his situation.

The nurse said she asked if he was on medication. Young replied he had been prescribed Prozac and Respiradol for anger and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The boy then told her he didn't have any medication with him and hadn't taken any of his pills for two weeks.

"He definitely needed a new prescription," Roles said. She booked him for an appointment with a staff psychiatrist to obtain the medication.

The appointment was made for the morning of Jan. 22, but he never made it. That was the day Young, who was shackled and wearing handcuffs, was removed from a cell at the courthouse by two guards because he was acting up.

The guards, both over six feet tall and each weighing more than 200 pounds, have testified the boy fell five storeys down the shaft after they pressed him against an elevator door and it popped off its tracks.

On Monday, Young's mother testified her son was like any other normal teenager when he took his pills. She said he had been on medication for behavioural problems since he was six year old.
But when he didn't take his medication, he could "flip out" and would swear, throw things and show disrespect to authority figures, Lorena Young said.

She said Roles' testimony reinforces what she has always known.

"I'm just glad that we found out that Kyle was not on his medication as a fact, not just as the family knowing," she said outside court.

"Now everybody knows because the lady said so."

On Monday Young also testified that staff at the young offenders centre told her that her son wasn't allowed to receive medication from his family.

Roles said that wasn't true.

The nurse also testified she classified the youth as stable with no need for mental health checks.
Earlier Tuesday, Don Livingstone, a supervisor at the centre, testified Young was held in a special security cell the day before he died following a dispute with a staff member.

Staff ordered Young to strip and wear a garment, known as "baby dolls," that was used for young offenders thought to be a suicide risk, Livingstone said. Inmate slang for the garment was "wearing a dress."

Livingstone testified the Alberta government has since discontinued the use of such garments.
Lorena Young and her lawyer contend it was lack of proper medication that was responsible for her son acting up the day he died.

Toxicology tests performed after the boy's death were inconclusive.

His mother has said she hopes the inquiry, headed by provincial court Judge Jerry LeGrandeur, will determine if excessive force was used by the guards and if the elevator door was defective.

A review by Alberta's Justice Department last year said guards used "a modest amount of restraint" and followed "normal procedures" with Young.

Public fatality inquiries establish the cause, manner, time and other circumstances of a death. They do not determine legal responsibility but may offer recommendations to prevent future deaths.

Witness says Edmonton police put words in her mouth after fatal chase

JULIA NECHEFF, June 14, 2005

EDMONTON (CP) - A witness at a fatality inquiry testified Tuesday that officers coerced her into saying a police chase ended well before a high-speed crash that killed two fleeing teens.
The inquiry is probing the deaths of Cory Bishop, 16, and Ryan Pope, 17, last year. It was a scorching hot July afternoon when Dana McKinney was in front of her house having a cigarette when she saw a police chase end on a residential street in north-central Edmonton. She also saw the subsequent crash in a nearby intersection, she testified.

After police aborted the chase, the Chevy Cavalier carrying the teens sped up and roared through a stop sign at the next intersection, she and others testified. The teens then smashed into a Honda Civic travelling through the intersection.

The Civic spun and hit a light pole, but none of the four people inside was seriously hurt.
But the car carrying Pope and Bishop hit a curb and ended up on its side. Still moving from the force of the impact, it skidded forward and wrapped around a tree, roof first.
Bishop, the passenger, was killed outright. Pope died shortly afterward in hospital.

"It (the Cavalier) went through the intersection at about 80 (kilometres per hour)," McKinney estimated.

But she disputed her written police statement when it was read at the inquiry. Although she agreed it was signed by her at the time of the crash, McKinney said the statement included things she never said.

She testified that three police officers were talking to her, one of whom wrote the statement for her.

McKinney told the inquiry the officers changed her statement to say the cruiser had aborted the chase about halfway down the block - far from the intersection.

She said when the cruiser turned off its lights and sirens and pulled over, it was the fifth car before the intersection, much closer than the officers said.

The officer taking her statement said to her: " 'You're in shock. Maybe you should rethink what you're saying to me,' " McKinney testified.

"They told me I was biased because my sister died in a police chase in '79."

McKinney said she signed the statement anyway. "It's better than arguing with three police officers," she told the inquiry.

There was no plan to call the investigating officers to testify at the inquiry, which is delving into the circumstances surrounding the teens' death with the view of making recommendations to prevent such deaths from occurring in the future.

The two officers who pursued the teens directly contradicted McKinney's evidence when they testified separately later Tuesday.

Both said they stopped the chase and pulled over three-quarters of a block before the intersection where the horrific crash occurred.

They were acting under orders from a sergeant in downtown headquarters who had told them to terminate the pursuit.

One of the officers, Const. Lance Parker, said an unmarked cruiser, a secondary unit, had arrived at the scene and was parked five cars away from the intersection.

The officers saw the teen driver commit a couple of traffic infractions and started following the vehicle, the inquiry heard. When they tried to pull the car over and it took off, the chase was on.
Both officers said they felt public safety wasn't endangered by the pursuit. There were no pedestrians and no traffic on the road, they said.

"Aside from it being in a residential area, the conditions were ideal," said Const. Brian Heideman, who was driving.

The pursuit went for nine blocks and lasted 73 seconds.

The inquiry continues Wednesday.

Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell

Truth suppress'd, whether by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com

If you hold the mouth of Truth, It will burst out its rib-cage. Somali proverb

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Publisher : Sheila Steele

Got something to say about this or any other stories on this site? Go to injusticebustersblog Participate!

injusticebusters court advice :

How to walk yourself through the justice system

 

Why you should dump your preliminary hearing (written July 1998 and still valid)

 

Sermonette: The Naked Truth -- (You will find links to many more sermonettes in the sidebar on this page

Another target of Dueck's malice: : Wilf Hathway

Our activism contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the civil trial.

Index to the stories on this website

This is not regularly updated so if you are looking for a particular story and you have a name or keyword, please use the site search engine(at the bottom of the page) which IS regularly updated

Index to Saskatoon Police stories

This is a pretty good scrapbook for the 1998-2002 period.

Inquiry into the malicious prosecution of David Milgaard untanling 36 years of Saskatchewan police and Crown misconduct: : Opening day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

Stephen Williams: Canadian writer subject to Stasi-like treatment by Canadian police

Terry Arnold: : Snitch a suicide?

RCMP scenario stings: Brian Hutchinson starts digging

Gary wells: Faulty eye-witness testimony

Tulia, Texas

Gilmer, Texas

Willie Upshaw

Wrongfully convicted in Canada

Foster Parent false accusations

Martensville

Don Smith obscenity trial: an obscene conviction

James Lockyer

Hurricane Carter

Johnny Cochran speaks up for Bill Sampson

Vopnis

Abdulai Mohamed

Nfld Defamation story:

Wanda Young

Racism in the Federal Civil Service

The Terrible Story behind the Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns convictions

Trial set for June 15

We know part of this disclosure is a forged statement and perjured affidavit from a Winnipeg cop

The Crown is still fighting Fred Poirier -- and they are losing. Secret Commissions Case from Northern B.C.

 

 

2005: In the United States the proven wrongful convictions just keep coming at us!

 

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Brandon Morin:

Convicted in Oregon

of rapes which did not happen

This website has good information about Measure 11 -- Oregon's Mandatory Sentencing requirements which have been in place since 1994. In this case we see how the combination of a flawed grand jury system and prosecutors who seek not justice but convictions is a recipe for wrongful convictions.

 

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Canadians who have been wrongfully convicted because of improper investigations combined with zealous Crown

A round-up of wrongful convictions in Canada

Robert Baltovich

Michael Burns

Sebastian Burns

Rodney Cain

Wilbert Coffin (hanged, 1953)

Jason Dix

Jim Driskell

Jody Druken

Randy Druken

Hugues Duguay

Michel Dumont

Peter Frumusa

Walter Gillespie and Robert Mailman

Clayton Johnson

Yvonne Johnson

Herman Kaglik

Darren Koehn

Kulaveeringsam "Kulam" Karthiresu

Stephen Leadbeater

Donald Marshall

Chris McCullough

Michael McTaggart

Felix Michaud

David Milgaard

Guy Paul Morin

Shannon Murrin

Jamie Nelson

Greg Parsons

Benoit Proulx

Atif Rafay

Louise Reynolds

Thomas Sophonow

Gary Staples

Billy Taillefer

Steven Truscott

Joe Warren

Leon Walchuk

 

AIDWYC

Innocence Project (Canada)

Innocence Project (U.S.)

Northwest Law Center on Wrongful Convictions

 

Kirstin Lobato

Jeffrey Scott Hornoff

Willie Upshaw

Hurricane Carter

Guildford 4

Birmingham 6

Amirault

Houston

U.S. wrongful convictions: Exonerateed

Kirk Bloodsworth

Laurence Adams

Ludrate Burton

Stephen Cowans

Wilton Dedge

Albert Johnson

Kenneth Marsh

Dwayne McKinney

James Bernard Parker

Peter Reilly

Peter Rose

Sylvester Smith

Clifford St. Joseph

John Stoll

Marty Tankleff

Wilton Dedge

Ray Krone

 

Still working on it:

Dennis Deschaine

Dennis Perry

Tim Sandfort

 

 

Revitalizing the archives From 1998 until 2002, injusticebusters was in the throes of identity crisis. What was it? What were we doing? We grappled with editorial policy at the same time we were learning the nuts and bolts of building and posting a website. Once we had a secure, paid site I had full editorial control, although I talked regularly to Richard Klassen who was forced to move his family several times and did not always have access to the internet. Rick's pages: one | two We posted our earliest and later actions. Early versions of the site can be found on the Wayback Machine. I began following other threads to stories of police and prosecutorial misconduct and the site's character took on another facet: a newsclipping scrapbook where stories could live longer than they would in print form. I also began picking up other stories of wrongfully convicted people. It was an explosion. By 2003 there were over 700 pages. I also had contact with several other people (Don Smith, Leon Walchuk, Monique Turenne, the Vopnis) and kept these stories going. It was the story of the Ross children's treatment at the hands of the Saskatchewan government which grabbed the attention of The Fifth Estate. The civil claim (The $10M Lawsuit as we called it) was only mentioned briefly at the end of their show which aired in November, 2000. When Richard Klassen began to make progress in bringing his civil claim to court, the government and police defendants alleged he was breaking the rules of court by publishing discovery material on the internet. MacNeil clinic (the document which started it all) The Thompson Papers Carol Bunko-Ruys reports This claim was absolutely false. However, rather than risk being thrown out of his civil claim, Klassen undertook before Judge Mona Dovall to sever all ties with the website. The court fights: Les Perreaux report QB271 These pages have links which lead to other pages from that era. Now that some of the dust has settled, I have been going back through the material we had posted in the early days. In the spirit of keeping the scrapbook alive, I have been reformatting and placing links. The original material remains intact. I hope the information, which chronicles our struggle is useful to you. The identity crisis is over. We know who we are --Sheila Steele, March 28, 2005

 

Blogging

Blogging has been in the news. It is the new, trendy thing with 40,000 new blogs being created each day. I established a blog for this website last September and it is now "taking off." These are a few of the pages with ongoing discussions.

Tasering Mary Lutz

Saskatchewan Centenary

Quint Blog discussion

Rotten apples in the Saskatoon Police

Blogging for choice

Michael Cardamone witch hunt

Implement recommendations of public inquiries

Stealing from the poor

Vancouver's killer cops

Tisdale rapists appeal

Winnipeg police misdeeds

Milgaard Inquiry

Chief Sabo: can he be trusted?

The Old Boys' Club Must Go!

Vancouver activists

John Hudak: Falsely accused mountie

City of intolerance

Constable Larry Lockwood: Exciteable!

Eric Cline

This is a great way for like-minded people to communicate and share our views. It is easier than making a website and marginally more difficult than a forum.

People who want to contribute simply have to punch the "comment" link and they will be taken to a page with a box which allows them to write their comment, preview and post it. It takes a while for the comment to show up and some people get impatient and repost. That's fine, I trash the duplicate posts and no harm done.

Please, please give it a try. The internet is distinguished from other media in that it is really and truly interactive. Blogging makes it possible to express your viewpoint even if you don't have a computer. You can go to the library or a friend's place or an internet cafe. Once you've mastered the basics (and believe me, if I can do it, you can do it) you will be participating in one of the most democratic -- and potentially powerful -- media the world as we know it has ever seen.

Come on. Don't be shy. Join the Weblog World! -- Sheila Steele, March 20, 2005

Toronto Police paid out $30M in secretly resolved claims over last five years