“Heartbreaking”: that’s one of the words Cindy Woodhouse, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, used as she offered her reaction to the details released by Alberta’s police watchdog on Wednesday on the investigation into the death of a First Nations man in Calgary while he was in police custody. The 42-year-old man, who has been identified as Jon Wells, a member of the Blood Tribe from southern Alberta , died on Sept. 17 following an encounter with police officers at the Carriage House Hotel and Conference Centre in southeast Calgary.
Police said they were called to the hotel just before 1 a.m. after someone reported “a man causing a disturbance and refusing to leave.
” In an update on the case on Wednesday, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team said that during the encounter, which lasted for several minutes, the man was unarmed, was acting “in a confused fashion” and appeared to be trying to pick things up off the floor that didn’t exist. When an officer pointed his stun gun and told him to leave the hotel, the man raised his hands and said, “I don’t want to die.” After an officer attempted to grab the man, a physical altercation ensued, the man was hit with the stun gun and punched in the head and handcuffs and leg restraints were applied.
ASIRT said as more officers arrived, the man was lying on the floor, bleeding from the mouth and had vomited. A spit mask was put on the man as he was lying face down on the floor. EMS gave the .
