Nova ScotiaThe East Coast Prison Justice Society says fatality inquiries should be mandatory in deaths involving police.East Coast Prison Justice Society says fatality inquiries should be mandatory in all deaths involving policeFrances Willick · CBC News · Posted: Oct 15, 2025 3:20 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours agoA man died at a condo building on Vimy Avenue in Fairview in February after police were called to the building. (Bryan Ray/CBC)The East Coast Prison Justice Society is calling for a public fatality inquiry into the death of a man earlier this year during an interaction with police while he was having a mental health crisis.On Feb. 22, police were called to a Halifax condo building to respond to reports of a man whose mental health was deteriorating. A struggle occurred between officers and the man, which led to police using a Taser on him. The man, 25, died at the scene. A recent report from the Serious Incident Response Team, which investigates incidents involving serious injuries or death that may have resulted from the actions of a police officer, concluded that charges against the officers in question were not warranted.Before the man’s death, he had gone to the hospital for treatment and waited more than four hours before he was seen by a physician, who concluded he needed to be seen by on-call psychiatric staff. Another five hours passed before a psychiatric nurse went to find him, only to discover that he had left.The man’s family had also sought help from the mental health mobile crisis team in the period leading up to the incident, but were told they were short-staffed and could not see him for at least two days.Systemic failuresThe East Coast Prison Justice Society says the case reflects systemic failures in the province’s response to mental health crises.“A comprehensive and transparent fatality inquiry is necessary to examine these failures, ensure accountability, and recommend meaningful changes to prevent future deaths,” says a news release from the group. “Such an inquiry is not only in the public interest, but is also critical to improving public safety.”The group’s co-chair, Sheila Wildeman, says public inquiries should, in fact, be mandatory in all deaths in custody, including in prisons, in police custody and in police-involved deaths.“The actions of the police at the time of the death do raise questions about whether appropriate measures of de-escalation and meaningful explorations of alternatives to the violent response that police ultimately gave, whether those were fully explored,” said Wildeman, who is also the director of the Health Justice Institute at Dalhousie University.The East Coast Prison Justice Society is also calling for a moratorium on police deployment to wellness checks, and to prioritize funding of non-police mobile crisis services. ‘Deeply sad’Jamie Livingston, an associate professor in the department of criminology at Saint Mary’s University, said he was alarmed by the number of systemic failures outlined in the SIRT report, including that a mental health crisis team wasn’t available to support the man and that he waited for hours at the hospital without receiving treatment.“There were problems in relation to the police handling of the situation, but you see the series of events in the hours and days prior to that in which things could have been very, very different for this family and this person in crisis, which is deeply sad,” Livingston said.He said a fatality inquiry would shine a more robust light on the struggles faced by people with mental health issues.“This death was preventable in many ways. And we worry that this will repeat itself again if these systemic issues aren’t fully documented and that recommendations don’t result from this tragedy.”The CBC asked the Justice Department on Wednesday whether the justice minister plans to call a fatality inquiry in the case. The department did send a response by email but did not provide an answer to that question.MORE TOP STORIESABOUT THE AUTHORFrances Willick is a journalist with CBC Nova Scotia. Please contact her with feedback, story ideas or tips at frances.willick@cbc.ca
Group calls for fatality inquiry in case of Halifax man who died during arrest
