Parents question son’s death at hands of RCMP
Review sought into police tactics used during struggle with Goodfish Lake man
EDMONTON The parents of a Goodfish Lake man who died after being Tasered by RCMP officers are seeking an independent review of their son’s autopsy, which attributed his death to a controversial condition called “excited delirium” syndrome.
Emroy Cardinal, 38, died in 2018 after a struggle with police in the lobby of the St. Paul Hampton Inn, about 200 kilometres northeast of Edmonton. Officers were told Cardinal was vandalizing vehicles and breaking interior windows in the hotel.
The actions of the officers involved are under review by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT), the province’s police watchdog.
Cardinal’s parents, Edward and Emilene Blood, question the amount of force RCMP officers used to subdue their son — which, according to an autopsy report, included three shocks from a Taser and an officer placing pressure on his neck.
“I want accountability,” Edward Blood said. “I want things to change in regards to his death, in regards to how the Tasers were applied.”
He also questioned the use of neck pressure in his son’s arrest.
“He shouldn’t die for windows,” he added. “He shouldn’t have died for that. Windows are replaceable. Damage to a vehicle is replaceable. Bottom line, my son’s life is not replaceable.”
An autopsy report from Dr. Mitchell Weinberg, a pathologist with the Edmonton medical examiner’s office, lists Cardinal’s “immediate” cause of death as “excited delirium syndrome” as a consequence of cocaine toxicity. Heart disease and “struggle during attempted police restraint” were considered significant contributing factors.
Weinberg’s report said people who experience excited delirium often exhibit agitation, confusion, hyperactivity, excessive strength and violent behaviour, often as a result of using stimulants like cocaine.
Describing the syndrome as “well-known within the forensic pathology and emergency medicine communities,” Weinberg said such deaths often involve a struggle with law enforcement, ending with the individual going into cardiopulmonary arrest.
The concept of excited delirium syndrome is controversial, in particular because it’s often cited as a factor in deaths in police custody. A recent Slate magazine article quoted the former chief medical officer for New York City’s jail system, who said excited delirium is not a formal medical diagnosis and that it has a “long history of being used to absolve law enforcement of responsibility in the death of people, especially people of (colour).” (Cardinal was a member of the Whitefish Lake First Nation).
Erika Norheim, the Bloods’ lawyer, said they are seeking a review of the autopsy, but have yet to retain anyone.
“I am specifically interested in determining any connection between the neck restraint and death and the Tasering and death,” she said. “The autopsy currently attributes the death to excited delirium and cocaine use, which seems to absolve the police.”
“My clients wish to investigate what, if any, role the police use of force had in causing the death.”
RCMP were called to the St. Paul Hampton Inn during the early morning hours of July 31, 2018, after reports of a man damaging property, ASIRT said in a news release.
The autopsy said Cardinal’s wife asked him to leave their hotel room after she found him smoking in the bathroom.
Two officers arrived at around 2 a.m. and found Cardinal barricaded in a storage room. At some point, he left the room and “confronted” the officers.
Officers told Weinberg they found Cardinal in the lobby, and that he “asked to be shot” and “soon thereafter attacked one of the officers.”
“During an ensuing struggle, the man went into medical distress and became unresponsive,” ASIRT said. Officers administered CPR until ambulance crews arrived, but Cardinal was pronounced dead in hospital.
Much of the incident was captured on the hotel’s security cameras, with the exception of the final few minutes. Weinberg said that particular camera was “not at an ideal angle, and thus a completely clear and multi-angled view of the incident does not exist.”
The confrontation lasted around 18 minutes, shifting from the lobby to an office to a convenience store area. Officers said Cardinal at one point picked up a pair of scissors, which led to the first of three Taser uses.
Eventually, one of the officers got “parts of her upper extremity near and around the individual’s neck on an intermittent basis for at least a few seconds.” Cardinal was taken to the ground about 12 minutes into the incident, where the two officers restrained him in a seated position. Weinberg said that, due to the angle of the security camera, it wasn’t possible to see how the officer holding the upper half of Cardinal’s body was positioned, or the amount of force used.
Cardinal stopped moving around at 2:13 a.m., at which point officers tried to check for breath and a pulse. A few minutes later a third officer arrived, and Cardinal was rolled prone and handcuffs were applied. He was pronounced dead in hospital at 3:06 a.m.
Edward Blood remembers his son as a caring uncle and father whose grandfather served in the RCMP. He said Cardinal had struggled with paranoia and anxiety after being beaten by a group of people in 2017.
Blood is committed to having his son’s death reviewed, but said paying for a second opinion will be costly.
Cardinal’s death is also slated for a fatality inquiry, which hasn’t yet been scheduled.