Lethbridge man died from alcohol, not push from police officer: ASIRT

Lethbridge Police Service headquarters (THE CANADIAN PRESS/David Rossiter)

A Lethbridge Police Service member has been cleared of any wrongdoing for his actions in a 2018 response where he pushed a suspect who later died.

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) says two officers responded to a downtown Lethbridge alleyway in the early evening hours of Oct. 3, 2018 for reports of two men fighting.

The officers determined the two men had been drinking and that one of the men had a no-contact condition against the other as part of a previous legal ruling. 

ASIRT says the man who was breaching the condition was arrested. The other man became irate, swung a bag containing a large bottle of vodka over the head of the man in custody and came at the officer aggressively.

The officer responded by placing a hand on the man's chest and pushing him, causing the man to lose his balance, stumble backward and strike his head on the ground. He was unconscious and his breathing became shallow.

An EMS crew was called to the scene and took the unconscious man to hospital where he was pronounced dead. The man's heart later resumed beating and the intervention of medical staff brought his heartbeat back to a regular rhythm. Despite their efforts, the man died in hospital several days later on Oct. 8.

An autopsy attributed the man's death to an anoxic brain injury caused by acute alcohol intoxication. The man had suffered fractures to his ribs and sternum as a result of CPR attempts but there was no indication that his death was directly due to a head injury caused by the officer's push that toppled him.

"There is no evidence to support any inference that police engaged in any unlawful or unreasonable conduct that would give rise to an offence," read the ASIRT report on the investigation. "The force used was necessary and reasonable in all the circumstance, notwithstanding the tragic outcome."