'Why didn't they keep him safe?': Family, First Nations leaders question police after man's death in custody
CTV
Family and First Nations leaders are questioning the response by Winnipeg police following the death of an Indigenous man taken into custody.
Family and First Nations leaders are questioning the response by Winnipeg police following the death of an Indigenous man taken into custody.
Elias Whitehead, 37, died on Oct. 15 after going into medical distress. Witness video appears to show officers using force to restrain an individual who family says was Whitehead.
His partner, Jody Beardy, said the video is traumatizing and that police failed him.
"Where was his help? Why didn't they keep him safe? Regardless of the situation, they failed him," Beardy said at a news conference Thursday.
She said Whitehead was in Winnipeg to finish a heavy machinery course last month. The video appears to show police on top of an individual and twice one officer knees the person.
At the time, police said officers responded to an individual acting erratically and running into traffic at Sherbrook and Broadway. He was taken into custody, went into medical distress and later died in hospital.
"We are here to discuss the circumstances surrounding the tragic and unnecessary death of Elias Whitehead," said Garrison Settee, the grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO).
