Family sues over death of detained son
LEVON SEVUNTS The Montreal Gazette
September 04, 2002
Two years after the death of Bryan Bédard following a scuffle with guards at the
Rivière des Prairies detention centre, his family is suing the Quebec government
for detaining him and, they allege, failing to look after his safety. Bédard's
parents and two brothers argued at a press conference yesterday that the
33-year-old mentally ill man should never have seen the inside of a prison cell,
let alone died in one.
But the main goal of the $301,000 lawsuit is to force the government to act on
recommendations in the coroner's report into Bryan's death, said his father,
Jean Bédard. "The point is not money, but to force the government to make
changes," he said. "Otherwise Bryan's death would serve no purpose."
The report, by Dr. Andrée Kronstrom, stated that Bédard went into cardiac arrest
on April 21, 2000, following an altercation with guards at the detention centre
as they attempted to bring him back to his cell. Bédard, who suffered from
paranoid schizophrenia, was arrested on April 18, 2000, and charged with
trespassing while he was looking for his cat. He was detained in a special wing
reserved for inmates with psychiatric problems and was awaiting an evaluation at
the psychiatric Pinel Institute. Following the altercation, he was taken to
Santa Cabrini Hospital in a deep coma, where he died six days later after
life-support machines were disconnected at his family's request.
In her report, Kronstrom said Bédard died from heart failure caused by a lack of
oxygen as guards attempted to subdue him by placing a towel on his face in an
effort to place him stomach-down on a bed. Kronstrom recommended that
health-care agencies, including CLSCs and regional health boards, as well as
judges and prosecutors, work together to ensure patients diagnosed with
illnesses like schizophrenia aren't detained at the Rivière des Prairies
detention centre or other detention centres.
Two years later, the government hasn't moved on any of the recommendations,
Bédard's family argued at yesterday's press conference. Their demands were
backed by representatives of human rights groups specializing in the rights of
prisoners, the mentally ill and victims of police violence. Jean-Claude Bernheim
of the Prisoners' Rights Committee said up to 15 per cent of detainees in Quebec
are mentally ill and end up in the correctional system because the health-care
system can't handle the demand. Participants at the press conference also
decried what they called a culture of coverup when it comes to investigating
human rights violations in the penal and police systems. "There seems to be a
very strong law of omerta (a Mafia-style code of silence)," said Yves Manseau of
Movement Action Justice, a police watchdog group. Citing the pending lawsuit,
government officials refused to comment on the case.
- Levon Sevunts's E-mail address is lsevunts@thegazette.southam.ca
