The family of an inmate who died in the back of a B.C. Corrections van last month is demanding answers.
In a statement released on their behalf, the family of Charles Alexander Joseph, 36, said they were notified of his death the day after it happened but learned the details through the media.
They called the officers' actions "unforgivable" and are pushing to have charges of criminal negligence causing death laid against the two.
"If they are not going to be charged in the death then can they 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.
Joseph was found unresponsive on Oct. 4, some time after fellow inmates tried to tell officers he was dying of a drug overdose while they were being transported from Prince George to Maple Ridge.
The officers stopped for coffee in Williams Lake but did not heed to their calls for help. When the van finally pulled over, north of 100 Mile House, Joseph was unresponsive. A passerby stopped and performed CPR, but he was gone.
The family also wants the officers names made public "so that the prisoners have the option of refusing to be transported by them in case they go into medical crisis. It is a life or death issue. Alex could be alive today if they would have stopped and helped him."
Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth was out of province Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. But in a Vancouver Sun story published last week, he called Joseph's death "very disturbing."
He said B.C. Corrections, the RCMP and the B.C. Coroners Service are all investigating.
And in a statement, B.C. Corrections official Cindy Rose has said her agency is conducting "a formal review of the circumstances to make recommendations that may reduce the likelihood of a similar incident in the future."
"Staff in the cab of vehicles can monitor inmates via cameras mounted in the passenger compartment, supplemented by a two-way communications system," the statement said.
- with files from Kim Bolan, Vancouver Sun
