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Video shows death in police cell |
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Written by Frank Peebles
Citizen staff
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Monday, 02 November 2009 |
Cheryl Ann Bouey hanged herself to death on June 26, 2008 inside women's cell No. 5 at the Prince George RCMP detachment. Everyone who attended the coroner's inquest into her death watched it happen on a surreal video recording of the cell.
A coroner's inquest heard from RCMP Const. Jane Harnoi that she made a mistake during the search of Bouey. The drawstring in her pants should have been taken, but was missed.
What seemed more surreal, and was asked of those who attended to Bouey in the moments after her suicide was discovered, was why they did not seem to notice right away, or why nobody administered CPR. When the ambulance attendants arrived, they pronounced her dead at the scene.
According to testimony, and detailed video surveillance of the incident, Bouey, 42, was arrested along with her boyfriend Colin Mamela and brought to the RCMP detachment for being intoxicated in public. According to toxicology reports, she had a blood-alcohol level of about 212 milligrams (the legal driving limit is 80 milligrams) and this had been higher before the sobering process had started to take place.
Bouey was very angry and crying profusely during her search and placement at the RCMP detachment. Harnoi, being the lone female member on duty at the time, did the body search of Bouey before she was placed in holding cell No. 5. It was there that Bouey formulated the plan and carried out the act of hanging herself using the drawstring.
"It is my practice to remove all drawstrings," Harnoi said. "She was wearing jogging pants, they had an elastic waist. I detected the elastic waist. I did not notice the drawstring."
It was civilian jail guard Roy Reznechenko who walked the rounds of the cells that night. He passed Bouey as she was slumped back against the bars of the cell door after she made her noose and slumped down to cut off her own breath. He saw someone he knew was significantly drunk leaning back on the door. Even so, something seemed amiss to him. He testified that he was going to go for help, since guards are not permitted to enter a cell without an RCMP member there for safety. First, though, he urged himself to break the rules and go inside the cell for a closer look. He quickly noted Bouey's condition.
It happened to be Harnoi whom he first encountered. She attended with Reznechenko to the cell and she cut Bouey's lifeless form down. This scene on the video caused gasps from the gallery even more than the hanging itself. Mamela leapt to his feet at that point and tearfully fled the courtroom for a while. Bouey's mother wept quietly.
Harnoi also wept, suddenly breaking the collected demeanour that had been her custom throughout her testimony.
It was only upon entering the cell and seeing the body face-on that you could tell something grave had happened, Harnoi said.
"Are you trained in CPR?," a juror asked Harnoi.
"Yes I am," Harnoi replied. All RCMP members are.
"Why didn't you try CPR?," the juror said.
"She was dead," Harnoi replied. "I know what you're saying, but she had been dead for some time. I have seen a lot of dead bodies in my job as a police officer and to me she was past that point."
An ambulance attendant also testified that indeed Bouey was well into the grip of death, past the point of CPR's effectiveness.
The inquest continues today and tomorrow at the Prince George Courthouse with coroner Roderick MacKenzie presiding.
THE SHORTNESS OF BREATH
Veteran pathologist Dr. Vernon Bowes did the autopsy on Bouey on June 27, 2008, the day after she died in an RCMP cell in Prince George. He told the coroner's inquest into her death what he believed caused her to die.
"My principal findings indicated that the main feature of this examination was a deep furrow in the neck," Bowes said. It was about .8cms wide and about .4cms deep. "My determination was ligature asphyxiation via strangulation by a cord. That cord matched the characteristics of the (one in her sweatpants). They (the pants) had been removed and the ligature tie was formed into something of a noose, and this did fit with the width and depth of the ligature furrow."
Curiosity at the inquest was immediately expressed about how such a small string from such a shallow height could cause someone's death so quickly. Bowes said the public is often unaware of the truth about strangulation's efficiency and speed as a cause of death.
He said the carotid arteries in the neck (there are two, a left and a right) need only four to seven pounds pressure to cut off their supply of oxygenated blood to the brain.
"We all tend to think this circumstance would take some time, and with self-inflicted strangulation the person would have to have their feet off the ground. Actually, one-third of ligature hanging happens with the person on their knees or sitting, which is likely what happened in this case."
Unconsciousness would take only five to 10 seconds and death could occur "almost immediately" after that if the pressure is not quickly released, he said.
"It can be lethal within 30 seconds, and in this case there was absolutely no oxygen flow into the brain once this ligature applied its pressure equally across the neck," he said.
According to other witnesses, and the video of the event, it was more than a minute before the cell guard walked past after she made her suicidal move, and about four minutes before the guard got inside the cell and knew her to be hung by the neck.
TIMELINE OF A SUICIDE
A time signature on the RCMP video surveillance tape showed the graphic image of Cheryl Ann Bouey fashion a noose out of the drawstring of her sweatpants, attach it to the bars of her cell door, position it around her own throat, and slump all of her weight against the string. It then showed the RCMP cell guard walk past once, come back and enter the cell to check on Bouey, then rush to get help. That help first included a single RCMP member who cut Bouey down, then other RCMP members who came to assist, followed by ambulance paramedics who took Bouey's body away on a stretcher, sheet drawn over her head.
The video also provided a time code mapping out the minutes and seconds of the incident.
Bouey and her boyfriend Colin Mamela were first brought to the detachment in a police car at 1:17 a.m., both arrested for being intoxicated in a public place.
Bouey was placed in a cell by herself. She was depicted as being clearly agitated. She removed her pants on more than one occasion and used them to swat the walls. She removed her socks and dashed them about the room. She crouched in a tiny space between the toilet and the pony-wall. She was up and down in various positions on the concrete cell floor (there was no furniture, blankets, pillow or other room feature to the cell).
Bouey was seen fidgeting with her pants up against the bars of the cell door (undetected by the camera was a thin wire mesh that also covers the bars on the inside). The guard walks past and she drops down to the floor until he passes, then commences her work again.
2:16 a.m. - fashions her sweatpants drawstring into a noose affixed to the bars on the cell door;
2:22 a.m. - positions her head inside the noose and slumps her weight forward;
2:23 a.m. - guard walks past and carries on;
2:26 a.m. - guard comes back and enters the cell, shaking her and discovering her predicament;
2:27 a.m. - guard goes to get help;
2:28 a.m. - RCMP member cuts her down and checks for pulse;
2:37 a.m. - ambulance paramedics arrive.
These times are rounded off, they are not to be considered exact benchmarks of the incident's sequence of events.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 02 November 2009 )
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Sometimes it is more appropriate to keep your "thoughts" to yourself.
:(