Inquest probes grim tale of Iqaluit man’s jailhouse death

The late Adamie Nutaraluk, while serving out a sentence at the Baffin Correctional Centre in 2007, looks at photographs from the Hamilton Mountain tuberculosis sanatorium, where he stayed for several years as a child. An inquest that started March 12 in Iqaluit is looking at his Dec. 9, 2009 death inside an RCMP jail cell in Iqaluit. (FILE PHOTO)

The long-awaited inquest into circumstances surrounding the 2009 death of Adamie Alariaq Nutaraluk, 56, inside an RCMP jail in Iqaluit started March 12 at Nunavut Court of Justice.

Nutaraluk died on the morning of Dec. 9, 2009 inside an RCMP jail cell in Iqaluit after being picked up for being intoxicated and causing mischief.

A six-member jury comprising four women and two men is hearing evidence, along with lawyers from the RCMP and City of Iqaluit.

Garth Eggenberger, the former chief coroner of the Northwest Territories is overseeing the proceedings.

In his opening remarks at the inquest on the morning of March 12, Eggenberger recounted how on Dec. 8, 2009, around 10:30 a.m., Nutaraluk returned to the home of his common-law spouse and asked where he could get a bottle of alcohol.

“He obtained a 60-ounce bottle of vodka and started drinking it. He made threatening remarks to his common-law spouse and the police were called. Before the police arrived Adamie drank a large portion of the bottle.”

Later, Nutaraluk ended up in an RCMP cell.

“He was placed in a police cell where he was observed through the night. When an officer went to release him in the morning, Adamie was found unresponsive and not breathing, an ambulance was called and he was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.”

Nutaraluk had been in and out of police custody on the night leading up to his death.

He was released at 10:36 p.m. Dec. 8, but ended up back in jail about two hours later in the early morning of Dec. 9.

On March 12, the jury heard from six of the 10 witnesses scheduled to testify at the inquest.

The witnesses included the guard at the RCMP cell block, first responders and the some RCMP members who were on duty that night.

Nutaraluk, called a “C-13” because of the numbered police work form for intoxicated people in RCMP custody, had been picked up at 12:49 a.m. that night, after he was found in a snow bank in the 300s area of Iqaluit.

Described as “very intoxicated,” Nutaraluk was put in the drunk tank, where RMCP would often put detainees who might not be able to navigate the steel bunk beds of the cells.

In his cell, Nutaraluk snored all night.

The jury heard how at 7 a.m. in the morning of Dec. 9 Nutaraluk appeared to be okay.

But at 8:17 a.m., when RCMP Cst. Ian Allen first entered the cell, Nutaraluk lay on the floor with his right arm extended and his head on his arm. According to other testimony at the inquest, Nutaraluk had mottled skin, his lips were blue and there was some blood around his nostrils.

Allen yelled at him, with no response. That’s what the RCMP do to ensure they won’t face an aggressive inmate. And he touched him around his collarbone — without any response.

Allen told the inquest that he noticed a liquid similar to olive oil with blots in it on the floor near Nutaraluk.

Allen checked to see if Nutaraluk was breathing before alerting his superior officer.

Allen, who has emergency training, said he would have done First Aid resuscitation measures on Nutaraluk.

But his superior, who fetched a camera to take a photo, said he felt Nutaraluk was dead, and that it was better to call first responders from the City of Iqaluit.

The Iqaluit emergency responders, who arrived at 8:23 a.m. at the jail cell, found Nutaraluk without a pulse, but started cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

Firefighter and emergency responder Sharon Macdonald said Nutaraluk was described in the call she answered as a “code 4,” which means “someone who would need ‘a lot of work.’”

Although Nutaraluk did not survive, Macdonald said she’s satisfied that she and the other first responders did the right thing, saying “there’s nothing I would change at this call.”

On the way to the hospital with Nutaraluk, an alert sounded in the ambulance.

The alert was intended to warn emergency workers that they should administer an electric shock with a defibrillator because there was movement in the body.

But Allen suggested that was likely caused by the bumpy ride to the hospital.

The ambulance arrived at Qikiqtani General Hospital at about 8:40 a.m.

There, a doctor pronounced Nutaraluk dead at 8:46 a.m..

Allen said that when he locked Nutaraluk into an RCMP body bag later that morning, Nutaraluk was stiff, which made Allen think Nutaraluk “was not deceased for too long” before he first saw him at 8:17 a.m.

The inquest continues March 13.

The purpose of coroner’s inquest is to determine how he died and when he died and to make recommendations to prevent similar deaths from occurring.

All deaths that occur in RCMP custody require a coroner’s inquest.

If his death was problematic, so was Nutaraluk’s hard life.

In 2007, while serving a sentence at Baffin Correctional Centre, Nutaraluk gave a long interview to Nunatsiaq News.

In it, he said the trauma he suffered as a child at the Hamilton Mountain Sanatorium, where he was sent for tuberculosis treatment around the age of five, robbed him of his language and filled him with anger for his entire life.

The journey cured his tuberculosis, but he said it also robbed him of his language during his childhood.

He said he had felt anger ever since, a big reason why he had been in and out of prison since the 1970s.