The BC Coroners Service will be holding a public inquest into the death of a Fort St. James man who died in a corrections vehicle while being transported from Prince George to Maple Ridge.
The inquest into the death of Alexander Charles Joseph, 36, will be held at the Prince George courthouse on Aug. 9. Joseph died on Oct. 4, 2018, in the back of a corrections vehicle on Highway 97 near 100 Mile House.
Gordon Hansen, Josh Suvee-Forsythe and Keghan Cosh were inmates being transported in the same Corrections vehicle as Joseph. In 2018, they told the Vancouver Sun that Joseph became unresponsive and the inmates tried to get the drivers’ attention without success.
“Just before Williams Lake, I could see that his hand was just blue. He was going under. He was done. He needed a naloxone shot and he would have been fine,” Cosh told the Sun in a phone interview from custody at Fraser Region Correction Centre. “We were banging (on the van walls) at this time, maybe 10 or 20 minutes before Williams Lake. Maybe for half an hour, we were like screaming at the top of our lungs, ‘This guy is in overdose. Pull over man.’”
Suvee-Forsythe told the Sun he wanted the family to know he and his fellow inmates tried to save Joseph’s life.
“We were doing everything we could to get the guards to respond,” he said. “We covered the cameras. They just slammed on the brakes to make us fall down. At the top of our lungs we were just screaming.”
Hansen said when the corrections vehicle finally stopped, it still took a long time for paramedics to arrive. Joseph was already dead, still in shackles and handcuffs, he said.
Joseph is a member of the Beaver clan of the Nak’azdli First Nation. A statement issued by his family in 2018 called for the B.C. Corrections officers driving the vehicle to be held accountable.
“If they are not going to be changed in the death then they can at least be relieved of their jobs because of the callous disregard for a person’s life they have shown for the world to see,” the statement said.
Then-Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth said in 2018 he hoped one of the three investigations into Joseph’s death would get to the bottom of the issue. His death was the subject of an RCMP investigation as well as a B.C. Corrections investigation.
The coroners’ inquest is the last of the three investigations to be conducted.
Lyn Blenkinsop, the presiding coroner, and a coroner’s jury will hear evidence from witnesses under oath to determine the facts regarding Joseph’s death. The jury will be able to make recommendations aimed at preventing additional deaths under similar circumstances, however they cannot make a finding of legal or criminal responsibility.
The inquest is open to the public, but seating will be limited. A livestream of the inquest will be available online at www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/life-events/death/coroners-service/inquest-schedule-jury-findings-verdicts/inquestlivestream.
- With files from Kim Bolan, Vancouver Sun
