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SIU not laying charges in high-profile death of Barrie man

SIU says Olando Brown died after swallowing two 'golf ball-sized plastic bags' at police station
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The vigil for Olando Brown in downtown Barrie is shown in this file photo from last summer. Raymond Bowe/BarrieToday

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) says it will not lay charges against Barrie police officers involved in Olando Brown's arrest in downtown Barrie last summer because the 32-year-old man died from swallowing two "golf ball-sized" plastic bags at the police station.

The incident happened June 22, 2018 and made headline news after video surfaced of the arrest at the Five Points.

However, SIU director Tony Loparco says there are no reasonable grounds for criminal charges. 

According to the SIU, at 4:22 p.m. that day, Barrie police informed the SIU of Brown's death while in custody. 

Approximately two hours earlier, Brown had been arrested downtown on an outstanding warrant.

The SIU says he resisted arrest while officers attempted to place him in handcuffs and a conducted energy device (or CEW, commonly known as a Taser) was used "several times" to subdue him. He was taken to Barrie police headquarters on Sperling Drive. 

"Simcoe (County) paramedics were summoned and removed the CEW probes from the complainant’s left shoulder blade," the SIU report says, adding this was captured on video. 

"The complainant’s vital signs were checked by the paramedics both before and after the probes were removed and he was found to be in good health."

Brown was then taken to a search room for a strip search, in the company of two police officers. To protect his privacy, the SIU says the video recording equipment in the breathalyzer room was disabled as the camera was covered by one of the officers, which is in compliance with Barrie police policy for strip searches, while the audio continued to record the search.

The SIU says he "suddenly" removed one or more objects from his rectal area and placed them in his mouth. 

"The two police officers immediately tried to get the complainant to remove the items from his mouth, but were unsuccessful," states the report. "Within minutes, the complainant went into medical distress."

The police officers immediately began CPR and the paramedics, who were still in the parking lot, were again summoned and responded to the booking area, where they found Brown without vital signs. 

The two paramedics returned to find Brown lying on the floor with several police officers working on him and an automated external definrillator (AED) present, then inserted a breathing tube into Brown's airway, but they were unable to ventilate him.

They then attempted the insertion of a larger breathing tube, capable of going deeper into the airway, but it, too, was unsuccessful, leading to him beginning to vomit, according to the report. The paramedics described the vomit as a white liquid with blood in it.

The paramedics then used suction to attempt to dislodge whatever was blocking the his airway, but that too was unsuccessful.

Brown was then transferred to a stretcher and transported to hospital, where paramedics saw a registered respiratory therapist use a set of forceps to remove two balloons from his throat, the first of which was described as being intact and roughly the size of a golf ball, while the second was torn and seen to contain a white powdery substance.

After some time spent trying to resuscitate him, Brown was pronounced dead.

According to analysis on July 6, 2018 from a Health Canada analyst, the bags contained heroin, fentanyl, caffeine and dimethylsulphone, which is also known as methylsulfonylmethane and is used to reduce pain, inflammation and allergic reactions, while also having wound healing, dermatologic and exercise performance enhancing effects.

The SIU says the drugs did not factor into his death. 

"None of the substances identified by Health Canada as having been found contained in the plastic bags removed from the complainant’s airway were detected as having entered the complainant’s blood prior to his death," the SIU says in its report. 

The pathologist concluded that the cause of death was attributed to "airway obstruction by a foreign body,” namely the plastic balled objects located in his trachea at the time of his death. 

A civilian witness and the victim of the alleged assault for which Brown was arrested indicated that the he had told her that he did not want to go back to jail and that if he was going back to jail, he would kill himself rather than doing so, the report states.

The SIU says it's unclear whether Brown intended to cause his own death, or whether he was simplying attempting to dispose of the drugs so he would not face further charges. 

According to data downloaded from the weapon, one of the officers deployed the weapon four times, at 2:32:11 p.m., when he pulled the trigger for three seconds; at 2:32:16 p.m., when he pulled the trigger a second time for five seconds; at 2:32:26 p.m., when he pulled the trigger a third time for a period of eight seconds; and, at 2:32:32 p.m., he pulled the trigger for the last time, for a period of five seconds. The total discharge time was 21 seconds. 

"I did take particular note, however, of the evidence of an independent civilian witness ... that she observed the arrest of the complainant, and that he was, in fact, resisting, and she saw no excessive use of force exercised by any police officer during the arrest," Loparco says in his decision. 

Following a post-mortem examination on June 25, 2018, the forensic pathologist found there was "no direct link" that his death was caused from being Tasered.

"On this evidence, I have no hesitation in finding that the complainant’s death, however tragic, occurred not as a result of the actions of police, but rather despite the actions of police," Loparco wrote in his decision. "It is clear that their actions were specifically aimed at saving the complainant’s life.

"In the final analysis, there is no doubt that the complainant, for whatever reason, decided to voluntarily ingest the two packages of narcotics that he had secreted on his person, and that he thereby caused his own death, whether intentional or not," Loparco added. 

For their case, which involved three subject officers, the SIU interviewed seven civilian witnesses and five witness officers in their investigation as well as two police employee witnesses. 

The SIU investigates reports involving police where there has been death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.


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Raymond Bowe

About the Author: Raymond Bowe

Raymond is an award-winning journalist who has been reporting from Simcoe County since 2000
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