Brutality Canada Police Brutality O Canada

Vital data could have saved man

Knowing patient's history would have changed police procedure

Chris Purdy, Journal Staff Writer
The Edmonton Journal
Tuesday 15 May 2001

Police say they lacked critical information for handling a psychiatric patient who died after they pepper-sprayed him.

They want mental health authorities to give them more details before calling them in to help with violent patients such as Kasim Cakmak, 37, who died in police handcuffs Friday.

Cakmak, who immigrated from Turkey in 1990, didn't speak English well, suffered from schizophrenia and feared police, factors that contributed to an aggressive arrest.

Police spokesperson Annette Bidniak said if the two arresting officers had known Cakmak's background, they would have behaved differently.

"It would have made all the difference," Bidniak said.

"The people who are the keepers of the information should review the case file and if anything sticks out, let police know."

She said the officers could have worn plain clothes and probably would have understood why Cakmak was not responding to their verbal instructions.

Staff of the Alberta Mental Health Board decided Friday to transfer Cakmak to Alberta Hospital from the board's downtown Community Living Program after he became increasingly aggressive during the day.

The Mental Health Crisis Response team was called but Cakmak became more agitated and slapped a nurse.

When police arrived to help with the transfer, he flew into a bigger rage, said Bidniak. The officers pepper-sprayed Cakmak but it had no effect. He remained combative.

With the help of a male nurse, the officers grabbed him.

"They finally got him down on the ground and handcuffed him, at which time they noticed his breathing had stopped," Bidniak said.

Cakmak was immediately taken out of the cuffs and given cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He was officially pronounced dead at hospital.

An autopsy Monday was inconclusive and determined Cakmak did not die from any injuries. Toxicology tests have been ordered and may take six weeks to complete.

Homicide detectives have ruled no excessive force was used.

"We are completely satisfied our members acted professionally and properly," said Bidniak. "That's not to diminish the sadness that this service feels for the family. It's a tragedy no matter how you look at it."

Cakmak's family is calling on the board to phone family members before transfers take place.

Cakmak's sister Nurbin Ciplak said she didn't know he had died until police showed up at the family home four hours later. The family could have tried to calm Cakmak down if staff had called before police arrived to arrest him, Ciplak said.

Board spokesperson Charles Vermeeren expressed his condolences to the family. A fatality inquiry will automatically be held to review the incident.

Mentally ill may react severely to spray

Jodie Sinnema, Journal Staff Writer
The Edmonton Journal
Tuesday 15 May 2001

Kasim Cakmak is one of at least four mentally-ill people to have died in Canada after being pepper-sprayed by police.

Pepper spray was not found to be the cause of any of the deaths, but research in 1995 by the American Civil Liberties Union in California suggest that people who are mentally ill may suffer adverse reactions to incidents involving pepper spray.

The researchers studied the deaths of 26 people between 1993 and 1995, all either high on drugs or suffering from a psychiatric disorder when they were sprayed. The spray failed to subdue any of them.

Normally, material called oleoresin capsicum in the spray causes extreme pain and burning in the eyes and on the skin.

Researchers suggested that when the spray fails and the mentally-ill patient becomes more violent and aggressive, the police may spray more pepper, risking an overdose.

Suppliers of the spray warn that anything more than a one-second blast could have adverse health effects on people with heart conditions or respiratory problems such as asthma.

As for the effects on the mentally ill, Lorne Warneke, the clinical head of psychiatry at the Grey Nuns Hospital, said people with schizophrenia have a high pain threshold because of an on-going neurological chemical problem.

"They may have wounds or cuts they won't pay attention to because their threshold of pain is raised," Warneke said. "They're in the state of hyper-arousal."

This becomes more pronounced at stressful moments, such as when police officers approached Cakmak to escort him back to Alberta Hospital. Warneke said he knows nothing of Cakmak's specific situation, but said the use of pepper spray is often warranted when dealing with mentally ill people.

"People who are psychotic are unpredictable. They may be hearing voices telling them that the police are the devil, that they're going to die," he said. "Probably the best thing to do is a show of force without force."

He said police should first circle a violent patient in riot gear and urge the patient to give up. When that doesn't work, Warneke said increasing degrees of physical force must be used because the "fight or flight" instinct may be triggered.

"Pepper spray for the most part is pretty innocuous. It's pretty horrific in the short term ... but to my knowledge, there are no long-term effects."

Warneke said pepper spray wouldn't interact with anti-schizophrenic drugs. But the drugs, such as largactil, mellaril, stelazine or haldol, can lead to fatal cardiac arrhythmia on their own.

"People just die suddenly in the heat of excitement for no apparent reason. It happens with a degree of regularity with patients on high doses of anti-psychotic agents."

Add to that the threat of force and the cardiovascular system may be pushed into overload. Warneke surmised this was the reason for Cakmak's death.

"It was probably his condition that led to the death and not the actions around it."

In its investigations into deaths caused by police officers, Ontario's Special Investigations Unit has found pepper spray to be an effective option to the use of lethal force.

Some police departments, like the one in Victoria, B.C., have switched from pepper spray to a non-lethal electric stun gun called a Taser. The gun works on people who are pain-resistant but causes no permanent harm.

OTHER CASES

Roy Sheppard, a 29-year-old Calgary man suffering from schizophrenia, died in 1996 after police pepper-sprayed him. He had been damaging the building where he lived.

A medical investigation concluded he died of "excitation delirium" -- a natural cause of death by heart attack for individuals with severe delusional disorders who become excessively stimulated.

Dr. Lloyd Denmark, Alberta's deputy chief medical examiner who performed the autopsy, said at the time: "There have been numerous cases of takedowns with pepper spray where the subject's heart stopped beating because he was either high on drugs or high from mental illness."

Denmark did not suggest that happened in the Sheppard case.

In 1995, 26-year-old Zdravko Pukec, a blind man with schizophrenia being treated in Whitby, Ont., died after he was pepper-sprayed by police. A coroner's inquest blamed his death on "cardiac arrest associated with acute psychosis, physical restraint, positional asphyxia, exhaustion and stress due to pepper spray."

Stefan Stefaniak, 44, a paranoid schizophrenic, was pepper-sprayed by police in 1994 after running naked through a neighbourhood in Thunder Bay, Ont. Once cuffed, Stefaniak stopped breathing. He could not be resuscitated.

In contrast, Tony Trauner of Ottawa didn't die after being pepper-sprayed in 1993. Police coated the schizophrenic with pepper spray until it was dripping off his face, but it had no effect on the enraged 36-year-old. Police finally shot him in the shoulder.

Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.

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This page created July 15, 2001