IQALUIT, Nunavut — Nunavut RCMP say a man who was arrested after being knocked over by a police vehicle was later beaten by another prisoner in lockup because there was no room to house the inmates separately.
In a news release, police say eight prisoners had to be housed in the four cells of its Kinngait detachment on Monday.
They say the arrested man was beaten by another prisoner as the detachment’s five officers were responding to calls that had backlogged while they dealt with an earlier weapons complaint.
Police say officers got back to the cells as soon as possible when the fight was reported.
But the arrested man was injured badly enough to be flown to hospital in Iqaluit.
RCMP have been heavily criticized for the man’s arrest, in which officers used the door of a slowly moving police vehicle to knock over the apparently intoxicated man.
Politicians and lawyers have called it another instance of a police force out of touch and disrespectful of the people it serves.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 4, 2020
The Canadian Press
