THUNDER BAY — Counsel representing the family of 25-year-old Emmanuel Oruitemeka is calling on the jury in the coroner’s inquest to find his manner of death to be homicide, citing the Thunder Bay Police Service officer’s failure in recognizing and acting on his medical distress.
Closing submissions were heard on Thursday in the coroner’s inquest examining the death of Oruitemeka in February 2014.
The jury heard eight days of evidence, including testimony from several Thunder Bay Police Service officers who detained Oruitemeka in the Trillium Way area the afternoon of Feb. 12, 2014 and transported him to the police headquarters on Balmoral Street.
“A homicide verdict is a finding of fact. It is not a finding that any of the officers were morally, criminally, or civilly responsible for Mr. Oruitemeka’s death,” said Rick Frank, counsel for the Oruitemeka family.
“Their actions and decisions in the booking hall support this verdict. Their conduct, as the SIU put it, was substandard in critical ways that led to the death of Mr. Oruitemeka.”
Video surveillance footage from inside the sally port and booking area of the police headquarters shows Oruitemeka unresponsive and limp while police searched him as he was face down on the floor for several minutes.
A period of five minutes passed before officers determined Oruitemeka was in medical distress and an ambulance was called. When paramedics arrived, it was determined Oruitemeka was vital signs absent and he was rushed to hospital.
Oruitemeka died four days later and a post-mortem examination determined the cause of death was a lack of oxygen and blood to the brain resulting from a cardiac collapse likely due to the ingestion of cocaine.
Arguing for the finding of homicide as the manner of death, Frank cited the officers failing to act, despite testifying to having concerns about Oruitemeka’s condition.
“It was a decision that was deliberate and the consequences were foreseeable,” he said. “The verdict of homicide is appropriate.”
Demar Hewitt, counsel for the Black Action Defence Committee, agreed with Frank and also called on the jury to find the manner of death homicide.
“You heard the evidence. [Oruitemeka] had five minutes. Five minutes would have made the difference, would have improved his chances of living,” Hewitt said. “For us, the five minutes of inaction is enough to satisfy the question you must ask yourself: was it purposeful? The officer knew that he needed the help.”
Counsel representing the involved police officers and parties with standing, including the Thunder Bay Police Service, Superior North EMS, the Thunder Bay Police Services Board, and the City of Thunder Bay, disagreed with the determination of homicide as the manner of death and argued the more appropriate finding should be accidental.
Kevin Matthews, who is representing several of the Thunder Bay Police Service officers, argued the officers were responding to a high-risk call involving a potential firearm and their actions were consistent with their training and service policies.
“This was a tragic accident. One that the police had no part in starting for Mr. Oruitemeka. It was not their action that started the medical distress Mr. Oruitemeka found himself in,” Matthews said.
“The police acted with urgency in removing a person detained in a gun call. The decline of Mr. Oruitemeka at the police detachment is very sad and tragic. But in the context of a gun call, the police reacting with care was reasonable.”
Matthews added that the Special Investigations Unit found no grounds to charge any of the involved officers with an offence and an internal report found the officers did not engage in any misconduct or negligence.
“They followed their first-aid training to the best of their ability,” he said. “They monitored him, they contacted emergency services. It should be classified as an accident. That is what this was. Mr. Oruitemeka’s passing was not foreseeable.”
Inquest counsel Julian Roy did not take a position on the manner of death but he said inquests are an opportunity for organizations and individuals to reflect on what went wrong and what can be done to create change in order to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
“There has been a sense of defensiveness. A reflective resistance to scrutiny. A reluctance to reflect and learn," Roy said. "An inquest is a time to take stock. For the community take stock. Have the institutions we entrusted to protect us lost their way? Lost sight of what’s important?"
Roy reminded the jury that they are the conscience of the community.
“It is your job to speak the truth about where we are at, as painful as that truth might be, to help us, help us make a course correction," he said.
Counsel for all parities with standing have already agreed to a set of recommendations, which includes joint training for all emergency services, mandatory anti-black racism training for police officers, improved communication between police and emergency services, and more training for police on recognizing medical distress.
Counsel for the Oruitemeka family and the Black Action Defence Committee also called for training to address the internal reluctance to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism within the Thunder Bay Police Service and that the surveillance footage from inside the police headquarters showing Oruitemeka be used for training purposes.
The jury began deliberations late Thursday afternoon.
