No charges recommended in 2022 death of Indigenous man at jail in Williams Lake, B.C.

WILLIAMS LAKE – The Independent Investigations Office says it will not be recommending criminal charges against RCMP officers in Williams Lake, B.C., after the sudden death of man in their custody. 

It says officers arrested the man who was driving an unlicensed moped around the Cariboo city on Sept. 30, 2022, and brought him to the RCMP cells.

The release says the man appeared to have fallen asleep on a bench in his cell and about two hours later, around 3 a.m. on Oct. 1, he fell off the bench onto the floor. 

It says while a guard checked on the detainee through the cell door and verbally confirmed that he was OK, the man was found unresponsive a few hours later. 

He was declared dead at the scene, and the IIO says its investigation revealed that the guard did not meet the standard of care for the man, partly because the detachment was understaffed.

It says the RCMP national policy also requires in-person checks no more than 15 minutes apart but the guard had done fewer physical checks than usual, relying on remote video, “because her knee was hurting.”

“In this case, any evidence of lack of supervision of the jail guards does not support a determination that there are reasonable grounds to believe any officer may have committed an offence, although it highlights the critical importance of ensuring that cellblock policies, and consequently the way vulnerable detainees receive care, are followed,” the office says.

It calls the man a “vulnerable detainee” and says his death was “tragic,” but it does not believe there are reasonable grounds for a charge, so it would not be referring the matter to Crown counsel.

The report, released Thursday, says while cause of death is not clear, it is possible that a medical event such as a seizure occurred. 

No estimate of time of death was provided. The report says the autopsy revealed injuries to the man’s face, but noted they were not visible on the video recordings from the jail cell. 

“The medical evidence, unfortunately, does not provide insight into the cause of the (man’s) death or assist in determining whether earlier provision of treatment might have changed the outcome,” it says.

The Tsilhqot’in Nation, which identified the man as one of its members, is calling for action from the RCMP or local, provincial or federal governments to ensure a similar death does not happen again. 

It says in a separate news release that the man’s family has had “no other option but to file a lawsuit in the B.C. Supreme Court to seek accountability and change.”

“It is unacceptable that Indigenous people continue to die in the jail cells of this country,” Tribal Chief Otis Guichon said in the news release on Thursday. 

“We are calling on the RCMP and all levels of government to work with us to make the changes that are needed to ensure a tragic loss like this one does not occur again. And if they don’t want to work with us, we will do everything in our power to hold them accountable and change the system ourselves, whatever it takes.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2025.