People attend a vigil in memory of Nicous D'Andre Spring in Montreal on Dec. 30, 2022. Spring died in hospital after reportedly suffering injuries on Dec. 24, at the Bordeaux provincial jail.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
Correctional services personnel violated their own confinement procedures in the events leading up to the death of an illegally detained young Black man in Montreal on Christmas Day, documents obtained by The Globe and Mail suggest.
Nicous D’Andre Spring, 21, should have been released after a video appearance in court on Dec. 23 but remained at the Montreal Detention Centre, also known as Bordeaux jail, for reasons still unknown.
On Dec. 24, guards intervening to break up a fight fitted his head with a spit hood and pepper-sprayed him at least twice, including once in the shower, before putting him in confinement. He was pronounced dead in hospital on Christmas Day.
Firsthand accounts by several corrections officers provide more details about the intervention and suggest he was experiencing mental health issues. These and internal policies obtained by The Globe also confirm prior findings by La Presse that the intervention appeared to violate the correctional services’ policies related to pepper-spray use.
Since Mr. Spring’s death, a unit manager and a guard have been suspended. A criminal investigation by the provincial police is under way, along with an administrative investigation by the Ministry of Public Security and a coroner’s office investigation into the cause of death.
Mr. Spring’s sister, Sarafina Dennie, said in a press release last week that “correction officers are supposed to be trained to deal with inmates with special needs, but they treated him like a rabid animal!” The Red Coalition, a non-profit lobbying organization assisting Mr. Spring’s relatives, said in a news conference last Saturday that the family would not be commenting further for now.
Alain Babineau, the coalition’s director of racial profiling and public safety, said at the news conference that Mr. Spring was “getting support to manage his mental health at the time of his death,” but did not provide details.
The Ministry of Public Security and the CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, which oversees health care at Bordeaux, said they do not have access to Mr. Spring’s medical files for confidentiality reasons and could not say if he suffered from mental illness nor if special measures were put in place for him. His court release order included a requirement that he undertake external therapy for anger management.
One corrections officer’s report mentions that Mr. Spring had been in confinement and, upon his admission to a regular unit on Dec. 22, exhibited strange behaviour, was unstable and had difficulty managing his emotions.
This report and others describe how, around 11:30 a.m. on Dec. 24, Mr. Spring got involved in a fight with other inmates. Guards intervened and overpowered him, handcuffed him with his hands behind his back, and fitted his head with a spit hood to prevent him from spitting or biting.
The officers escorted Mr. Spring to a confinement cell, but he kept resisting, trying to head butt the guards. They knocked him to the ground and pepper sprayed him after receiving an order from a unit manager. One of the reports says that a guard sprayed the substance on his glove to spread it on Mr. Spring’s face while he was on the floor.
The unit manager then ordered the guards to take Mr. Spring to the shower for decontamination. Reports say that one agent opposed this, saying that the inmate first needed to calm down and that the spit hood had to be removed before leading him into the shower. The unit manager told the agent to leave.
After being pepper sprayed, a person must be taken to an open space and calm down before going to the shower for decontamination, according to the correctional services’ internal policy obtained by The Globe. Quebec’s Ombudsman also stated in his latest report that the person must consent to decontamination before being taken to the shower.
Once forced into the shower, Mr. Spring continued to resist, and the unit manager again asked a guard to use pepper spray. The agent refused, according to one report, because the detainee was in the shower and still wearing a spit hood. Several reports say that the unit manager then pepper sprayed Mr. Spring himself, and one says that he emptied the pepper-spray container and asked for another.
In a toxicological guide, Quebec’s public-health institute notes that the use of pepper spray can “increase the risk of respiratory arrest” and that “there have been several reports of in-custody deaths” in the U.S. involving its use.
A spit-hood manufacturer warns on the product’s description that “improper use may cause asphyxiation, suffocation or drowning in one’s own fluids.” It stresses that it must not be used “on anyone that is vomiting [or] having difficulty breathing.”
After being sprayed in the shower, Mr. Spring appeared to calm down but did not react to the agents’ orders, several reports says, so they dragged him to a confinement cell. One report says that he was left there face down on the floor and that the unit manager refused to follow the usual procedures.
According to the correctional services’ procedures on safe admission to confinement obtained by The Globe, a detainee must be placed on their knees, facing the wall, and asked by officers for their co-operation before officers remove a detainee’s handcuffs and search them.
The pepper-spray policy and the Ombudsman report also say that prison personnel must check whether the person has any trouble breathing and monitor them for at least 12 hours after the use of pepper spray. None of the multiple corrections officer reports obtained by The Globe mention this being done.
After what some reports describe as a short time, a guard noted that Mr. Spring had no pulse and had stopped breathing. Medical personnel were called to begin resuscitation efforts and an agent called 911 for an ambulance, which arrived around 12:20 p.m., according to a report.
The events sound familiar to Yusuf Faqiri, whose brother died under similar circumstances in an Ontario jail in 2016 while facing major mental-health issues.
“You will have tragedies such as this continuing to happen if there continues to be no accountability,” said Mr. Faqiri. No charges have been laid after his brother Soleiman’s death.
“The spit-hood should be banned,” said Mr. Faqiri, whose brother was also fitted with the device prior to his death. He called the use of a spit-hood and pepper spray “a very dangerous mix.”
On Saturday, the Red Coalition called for a public inquiry and the release of any relevant detention centre video footage. The group is also seeking an independent autopsy and the creation of a citizen oversight board for the province’s correctional facilities.
Mr. Babineau and other members of the Coalition suspect racism played a role in Mr. Spring’s death. They said Minister of Public Security François Bonnardel and his government, which still hasn’t acknowledged the existence of systemic racism in Quebec, are not doing enough to fight discrimination.
Marie-Josée Montminy, a ministry spokesperson, said that “nothing has been ruled out after the conclusions of the investigations,” but that the ministry does not intend to request a public inquiry for now.
The ministry declined to answer specific questions on The Globe’s findings while the investigations are continuing.
According to data from the ministry, 132 inmates have died in provincial correctional facilities since April, 2017, excluding Mr. Spring. Among those, 59 died by suicide, two by homicide, 43 from natural causes and 27 from an “indeterminate cause.” Approximately 4,500 inmates are currently detained in these facilities.
With reports from The Canadian Press