Murray Wood: A special Grey Cup edition of who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week, Wood is pre...
A Saskatchewan RCMP officer has been arrested and is facing a breach of trust charge after an investigation into a delayed police response to a request for a wellness check back in 2024.
According to the Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team – a watchdog agency intended to provide oversight in cases where a person is seriously injured or dies as a result of the actions of police or while in police custody, along with allegations of sexual assault or interpersonal violence involving police – the officer was arrested on Thursday and charged with breach of trust by a public officer.
Read more:
- Three Saskatoon cops fired following investigation into ‘off-duty gathering’
- Regina police chief fired after misconduct investigation into text messages
- SIRT report clears RCMP of any wrong doing after fatal shooting at Red Earth Cree Nation
The officer, who was not named at any point in the team’s report, was released on an undertaking and is scheduled to appear in provincial court in Lloydminster on Dec. 11.
Court records identified the officer as Cst. Kalen Henderson of the Maidstone RCMP.
The watchdog agency said the charge relates to a call for a wellness check received by the Maidstone RCMP detachment at around 7:14 a.m. on the morning of April 3, 2024.
According to the team’s report, the caller requested a wellness check for a relative at a rural home in the Lloydminster area “after having been informed that the relative, a 68-year-old man, was deceased.”
The call was dispatched to an on-duty officer, the watchdog agency said, but the caller contacted police again about nine hours after placing the initial request.
“At approximately 4:30 p.m., the man’s relative contacted RCMP again, to request an update on the wellness check, and at 4:39 p.m., the originally dispatched member departed the Maidstone detachment,” the Serious Incident Response Team said in its report.
“At approximately 5:01 p.m., the RCMP received a call from another relative of the man, who had physically attended to the residence, reporting that the man was seriously injured but alive. RCMP attended to the residence shortly after this call and located the man. EMS was contacted and transported the man to hospital where he later died.”
The watchdog agency said it completed a thorough investigation into the case, and ultimately determined that “reasonable grounds existed to believe that an offence had been committed,” and noted that the matter was referred to Saskatchewan’s attorney general, Tim McLeod.
