No charges against officers in man’s 2024 death: police watchdog

Manitoba’s police watchdog has recommended no charges against Winnipeg officers who used a Taser and batons to arrest a man who later died in hospital of a brain injury brought on by cardiac arrest.

James Edwin Wood, 35, died at Health Sciences Centre early on Jan. 27, 2024, shortly after he was taken into custody on Fairlane Avenue in an arrest that was caught on camera.

Shortly after midnight that same day, Wood’s girlfriend called for Winnipeg Police Service officers to come to an apartment complex on Fairlane Avenue, between Freemont Bay and Buchanan Boulevard.

The initial call came in as a domestic incident involving an intoxicated man and his girlfriend, who was concerned for her three children, police said at the time.

“This incident was chaotic from the first 911 call received, which was a factor in how WPS officers attended to the scene and assessed the risk associated with (Wood’s) actions,” wrote Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba director Bruce Sychuk, in a report released late Thursday.

He said the actions of the officers were reasonable in the circumstances and that charges would not be warranted. An out-of-province use-of-force expert also reviewed the arrest and said the police actions were reasonable, Sychuk wrote.

Police were told Wood was highly intoxicated and was alleged to have assaulted his girlfriend’s children in addition to trying to break in or damage nearby homes, Sychuk said.

Officers arrived shortly before 12:30 a.m. and found Wood had wandered into the apartment complex’s parking lot and collapsed on a snow-covered boulevard.

Video of the arrest showed Wood flailing as officers, who tried to get him to turn onto his stomach, surrounded him. He did not immediately comply.

One officer used a Taser while two others piled onto him, with their knees on his back, the video showed. As he kicked his legs, another officer used a baton to strike him in the legs, before officers carried him off and began medical aid when they realized he was unresponsive.

He was taken to hospital, where he died.

Wood’s cause of death was ruled an anoxic brain injury — caused when the brain is deprived of oxygen — as a complication of cardiac arrest, tied to coronary artery disease.

Cocaine toxicity and the physiological stress of struggling and being restrained also contributed to his death, but were not an immediate cause, an autopsy found.

Sychuk said Wood was clearly in some form of distress and in need of assistance, as video footage from before police arrived showed, but officers did not have the benefit of reviewing that footage at the time.

“The end result is the tragic death of (Wood) after a use-of-force incident with the subject officers,” he wrote.

Sychuk said he’s again encouraging and inviting Winnipeg police to review the service’s use-of-force policy to include cooperation, which can encourage de-escalation and may result in less need for police to use force.

Wood’s family have filed a lawsuit against six officers and the city, alleging police used excessive force and treated Wood, who was originally from O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation, differently due to his race. The city has denied wrongdoing on behalf of the officers and the lawsuit remains before the court.

The family’s lawyer in the civil case, Martin Pollock, said Thursday his clients are “extremely disappointed” and skeptical of the IIU’s findings.

“They’re skeptical of the results, a lot of questions remain outstanding, from a forensic pathologist and use-of-force perspective, which will be certainly canvassed at the inquest, when called,” said Pollock.

“There’s very disturbing video evidence, which causes substantial concern by father, mother and family.”

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca