Police watchdog clears Mounties after man dies of ‘acute cocaine toxicity’ in Melfort RCMP cell

A police watchdog organization says it found no grounds to believe an RCMP officer committed a crime after a 44-year-old man died of “acute cocaine toxicity” in a cell in the Melfort RCMP detachment several hours after he asked to see a doctor.

According to a report published by the Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team, police were called to a home in Melfort on May 6, 2025 after getting a complaint of a possible break-in. The officer who arrived determined that a man had broken the window to a property he was renting.

The man – who was not named in the report, and was only referred to as “the affected person” – told the officer he had taken cocaine. Because the officer believed he was in the midst of a mental health crisis, he was arrested under the Mental Health Services Act “so he could be taken to the hospital for treatment.”

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The man, who had previously claimed his apartment was on fire and filling with smoke, appeared to have the same hallucination while inside the police vehicle, leading him to kick the rear passenger door “while yelling that the vehicle was full of smoke,” the report noted.

According to the Serious Incident Response Team, instead of taking the man to a hospital, the officer instead took him to a police cell and called paramedics to assess him.

“The affected person’s behaviour remained erratic, and he refused to answer questions from the paramedics or let them assess him, with the affected person again stating that he believed the cell was on fire and filling up with smoke,” the report read.

“The affected person did, however, agree to let the paramedics take him to Melfort Hospital.”

The man allegedly refused to co-operate with staff at the hospital, and when an officer grabbed his wrist and told him he was going back into custody, he allegedly fought with the officer. He was ultimately subdued and taken back to a cell without being assessed by medical staff, the team’s report said.

He was returned to the same cell at around 10:44 a.m., the report said, and was observed moving around the cell and drinking from the sink.

“At approximately 1:04 p.m., a civilian guard heard the affected person yell from his cell, asking to return to the doctor,” the report read.

“The guard relayed the affected person’s request to the two Subject Officers who were at that point working in the detachment and recorded the request in the guard log. One Subject Officer acknowledged the request but stated that as the affected person had been repeatedly doing and saying the same thing all morning and did not provide a rationale for his request, he believed that it could wait until the affected person was sober enough to return to the hospital.”

At around 5:09 p.m., roughly four hours after the man asked to see a doctor, he was found unresponsive in the cell.

“Based on a review of the cell block video, there was a period of approximately 11 minutes between the time of the affected person’s last observable movements within the cell and the time he was discovered unresponsive and life saving measures were commenced,” the watchdog agency’s report noted.

“Following the discovery that the affected person was in distress, RCMP members commenced first aid and immediately contacted EMS.”

The man was taken back to the hospital where he was declared dead shortly after 6 p.m.

“An autopsy conducted following the affected person’s death determined that he had died from acute cocaine toxicity, with severe coronary artery atherosclerosis as a contributing cause of his death,” the report noted.

But while the man died in police custody after repeatedly requesting medical help, and told police he had taken the drugs that ultimately caused his death, the Serious Incident Response Team said it would be unfair to say police failed to engage medical services for the man, as two attempts were made before he was returned to the cell where he ultimately died.

“Accordingly, while the affected person’s most recent request to see a doctor was not immediately acted upon, in totality, considering both prior attempts to obtain an assessment and the other actions by police as noted above, it cannot be said that the overall attitude towards the affected person’s well-being and medical needs was one of indifference,” the watchdog organization wrote.