Charges against officer in woman’s death dropped

LONDON, ONT. Relatives of a London-area Indigenous woman who died in police custody say they’re angry and confused after charges were dropped against one of two police officers accused in her death.

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) announced in July that London Police Const. Nicholas Doering and OPP Const. Mark McKillop were charged with criminal negligence causing death and failing to provide the necessaries of life in the death of Debra Chrisjohn of the Oneida Nation of the Thames. The SIU probes incidents involving police that result in injury or death.

Chrisjohn, 39, died Sept. 7, 2016, after she was arrested in east London by city police and then turned over to Elgin County OPP on an outstanding warrant, the SIU said. She was taken to St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital, where she died that night.

Crown attorney Jason A. Nicol withdrew the charges against McKillop on Monday, a lawyer for the Chrisjohn family said.

Chrisjohn’s sisters, Brittany and Ruby, said the decision is hard for the family to understand.

“We hope that everyone who played a role will be held accountable,” Ruby Chrisjohn said in a statement released by the family’s lawyer, Caitlyn Kasper of Aboriginal Legal Services.

“Debra was my best friend and a beautiful person. Her life ended far too soon.”

The Chrisjohn family is struggling to come to terms with the Crown’s move, Kasper said, because they don’t know the circumstances surrounding her death.

An SIU spokesperson referred all questions to the Ministry of the Attorney General, which didn’t respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Chrisjohn, a mother of 11 children and the grandmother of two, had battled addiction and had a history of run-ins with police but was trying to turn her life around before she died, her family said. She had started on methadone, planned to go back to school and was living with her father on the Oneida Nation of the Thames.

The day before Chrisjohn’s death, London police had arrested her for breaking into cars, but police left Chrisjohn at the hospital unattended and she left without being treated, her family said.

The charges against Doering, who has been assigned to administrative duties, will proceed, Kasper said. McKillop, a six-year OPP veteran, was kept on active duty after the charges were laid. Police chiefs have the authority to suspend charged officers with pay.