Police, province probe death of remand inmate

Man charged with drug, weapons crimes found unresponsive in cell at Regina jail

Few details have been released about the death of a 48-year-old remand inmate at the Regina Provincial Correctional Centre on Wednesday morning.

Drew Wilby, spokesman for the Ministry of Justice, said the man was found unresponsive in his cell where he was the lone inmate. Emergency crews, including EMS and police, were called but the man was pronounced dead at 9 a.m.

“I can’t release what the cause of death was because at this time we still don’t know,” Wilby said. “That’s still under investigation.”

Investigations have been launched by police, the coroner’s office and internally by the ministry. In-custody deaths frequently result in a coroner’s inquest.

The man’s name has not been released as attempts were being made to notify his family. All Wilby was able to report was the man’s age, that he was on remand for weapons and drug charges, and that he has been held at the jail for “a couple of months.”

Those on remand are held while their charges are before the court, and have not been convicted of the offences with which they are currently charged.

As is always the case with the death of an inmate, the morning ’s discovery had an immediate impact on the rest of the jail.

“Immediately when something like this happens, of course we’ll go into a lockdown mode to ensure that everyone is accounted for, to make sure that this isn’t something that’s system-wide, in particular to the unit that that individual is on,” Wilby said.

He said protocol dictates the cell in question as well as part of the unit be sealed to allow for the investigation.

Wilby couldn’t provide information on how often checks were done, when the last check had taken place prior to the discovery, or when the man was found — matters that form part of the investigation. He added typical checks are hourly, although that can vary depending on the unit and individual inmates.

This is the first death at the Regina jail this year. According to provincial numbers, the jail has seen 10 deaths since the 2005-06 year. Of those, four were suicides, four were deemed the result of natural causes, and the remainder were considered undetermined. None were homicides.

Wilby also spoke to a Tuesday afternoon incident that occurred in cells at Regina Provincial Court when three prisoners had to be taken to hospital after they took some sort of drug. He said testing is being done to determine what the drug or drugs were.

All three were released from hospital to the jail at about 11 p.m. Tuesday.

“There’s no indication to suggest that this is related to what happened this morning at Regina Correctional Centre,” Wilby said. “Having said that, the respective police ... will definitely do their due diligence on that.”

He added the two incidents will also be looked into by the ministry’s internal investigators to see if there was any connection.

Wilby said the investigation into the courthouse incident will look into how the men — two had been transported from the jail, where they were on remand, and the other had come from police cells — got the drugs.

He acknowledged there is an issue with drugs and other contraband making their way into the province’s jails and even occasionally the courts, despite best efforts of staff to keep them out.

“Inmates get pretty clever in how they want to bring that in,” he said.

One method the jail has been using is limiting mail between facilities, having discovered a “significant” amount of contraband coming through that way.