Last week, the Prince Albert Police Service charged one of their officers with criminal negligence causing death and failing to provide the necessities of life. On November 7th, 2021 33-year-old Saul Laliberte died while in the detention facility at the Prince Albert Police Service. His death was treated as an in-custody death and investigated by the Saskatoon Police Service.
The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Second Vice Chief Dutch Lerat says Laliberte’s mother, Amelia Bloomfield, contacted the police when Laliberte was taken into custody and urged them to take him to the hospital instead. He says she has yet to find out the results of his autopsy. The FSIN calls on all police agencies to immediately stop the practice of lodging any persons for intoxication from drugs or alcohol. Lerat calls it an inhumane practice.
He believes the responsibility belongs to the Saskatchewan Health Authority and suggests the SHA should provide police across the province with qualified medical practitioners available 24/7 who can respond to immediate medical emergencies, and if that isn’t an option, all vulnerable persons should be transported to medical facilities for care.
At the same news conference, the Prince Albert Grand Council and the FSIN urged the Prince Albert Board of Police Commissioners to immediately implement all 45 recommendations stemming from an inquiry into the Prince Albert Police Service. The inquiry was initiated by the Minister of Corrections and Policing on November 8, 2022, in response to the death of 13-month-old Tanner Brass.
Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte, in a news release, said, “We firmly believe that these recommendations provide a crucial road map for transformation and they all must be swiftly acted upon to prevent such tragedies from happening again.” Among the recommendations, PAGC calls for Recommendation #28, which proposes the inclusion of the Government of Saskatchewan on the board of the police commissioners, to be expanded to also include a representative from the Prince Albert Grand Council.
In February 2022, the Public Complaints Commission was asked to investigate after Prince Albert police responded to an early morning domestic dispute call and brought Kyla Frenchman in to detention because she had nowhere else to go on a cold winter’s night. They returned to the same house several hours later to find her 13-month-old son, Tanner Brass, dead. The boy’s father was charged with second-degree murder.
The Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team is also investigating the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Boden Umpherville on April 1, and a 34-year-old man who died after being shot by a police officer in January. Umpherville died in hospital in April after his family removed him from life support.
