Cocaine, alcohol contributed to man’s death while in police custody

Man, 47, died of cardiac arrest while being transported from holding area at WPD

WOONSOCKET — The death of a 47-year-old man that occurred while he was in police custody nearly a year ago was caused by cardiac arrest due to cocaine and alcohol use, the medical examiner has concluded.

Dondi J. Willis, a city resident, collapsed as he was being escorted from a prisoner holding area to a van for transportation to court and was later pronounced dead at Landmark Medical Center.

The cause had been pending for toxicology tests for some time after Willis died , but a spokesman for the state Department of Health confirmed the results on Thursday.

Willis was arrested without incident on the afternoon of July 31, 2016, on a warrant for failure to appear in Superior Court to answer a charge of violating a no contact order. Police stopped him and another man in a car leaving the area of Cleveland Street, where they had been called to investigate a report of an unrelated disturbance.

His death occurred the following morning, after he had spent the night in a holding cell. Police Chief Thomas F. Oates had previously described Willis’ interactions with police as routine. He said Willis never struggled with police officers or engaged in any sort of contentious physical contact with them at any time.

There was no indication from video surveillance of the cellblock that Willis was in any distress overnight, and in the morning he seemed alert and ready for the trip to court.

As a matter of standard protocol, the state police and the Office of Attorney General Peter Kilmartin were notified of Willis’ death and reviewed the circumstances. They concluded that the cause of Willis’ death was unrelated to his involvement with the police.