The mother of a man who hanged himself in his cell at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre says she blames jail guards for her son’s death.
Justin St. Amour had been taken off suicide watch and placed in the jail’s medical ward on Nov. 30, 2016 when he told a guard he needed to see the guard’s supervisor or he would kill himself. The supervisor never came and less than an hour later guards found St. Amour hanging from his bedsheet. He died eight days later in hospital.
“I think they failed him miserably,” said Laureen St. Amour.
Ottawa police opened a criminal negligence investigation after St. Amour’s death, but no charges were laid. A coroner’s inquest into the death begins Monday. Laureen said she plans to be there every day.
“The reason for anything that I do is for change to the penal system,” she said in an interview in her Overbrook apartment. “Our mentally ill children should not be in jail. They should be in a hospital receiving help that they need.”
Justin St. Amour, 36, was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager and had a long history of drug use and petty crime. He lived on the street or in shelters and often heard voices telling him to harm or kill himself. He claimed to hear messages from God, his mother said.
He’d attempted suicide at least three times before, including twice in the Innes Road jail, once by trying to hang himself and once by bashing his head against his concrete cell until he bled, said lawyer Paul Champ, who will represent the St. Amour family at the inquest.
St. Amour’s death echoes the tragic case of Ashley Smith, a severely mentally ill teenager whose 2007 suicide at a jail in Kitchener occurred as correctional officers watched her on a security monitor, but made no effort to intervene. The inquest into Smith’s death lasted more than a year and eventually ruled her death had been a homicide. Four guards were charged with criminal negligence, but the charges were later withdrawn.
“There are a lot of parallels with Ashley Smith,” Champ said.
St. Amour was arrested on Nov. 22, 2016 after an altercation in the emergency department of The Ottawa Hospital’s Civic campus where he had gone for help after feeling suicidal. He was charged with mischief and causing a disturbance. Because of his previous history, St. Amour was placed on suicide watch. He was taken off suicide watch a week later and hanged himself the next day.
His mother was at his hospital bedside when he died.
“The doctor told us he would always be on life support. He wouldn’t know us. He wouldn’t even know if he was hungry. We knew our son wouldn’t want to live this way,” she said.
“I loved him deeply. I still love him deeply. He’s one of the joys of my life.”
The St. Amour inquest will be held in the Keefer Room at Ottawa City Hall and is scheduled to hear from 25 witnesses over nine days. Dr. Michael B. Wilson is the presiding coroner. It is the second inquest in six months for a suicide at the Ottawa jail. Champ also represented the family of Cleve Geddes at an inquest last fall into his hanging death.
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