The Saint John Police Force headquarters. (Staff photo)
A Saint John woman is looking for a formal apology after city police left her to care for her allegedly intoxicated neighbour.
Kiersten Mitchell was at home on May 8 when police came to her door and asked her to care for her neighbour, whom she barely knew.
She says police told her the neighbour had been driving while intoxicated and flipped her vehicle several times.
Mitchell, who is eight months pregnant, told the officers she was uncomfortable with the request, having lost her mother to an impaired driver.
“I don’t have a lot of respect for drunk drivers,” Mitchell said.
Police told her she was the only option to care for her neighbour, and Mitchell says she felt pressured to accept the request.
To get her neighbour into the apartment she had to support them up a steep flight of stairs.
“She was still intoxicated so I had a lot of her weight on me while we went up the stairs, and the officers were just sitting in their cars watching,” Mitchell said.
After getting her neighbour into the apartment, Mitchell stayed for about 90 minutes. At one point, Mitchell says her neighbour began telling her about a long history of drunk driving.
“I told (my neighbour) at that time, my mother was killed by a drunk driver, and she said ‘Oh, thank God I didn’t hurt anyone,'” Mitchell said.
Police Looking Into Incident
In a statement, the Saint John Police Force confirmed they are aware of Mitchell’s report and are looking into the incident.
They said there is an impaired driving charge in relation to an incident on Friday, and a court date has been set in that case for July.
Now, Mitchell is left wondering why police chose to leave her neighbour in the care of a pregnant woman and asked her to break COVID-19 physical distancing restrictions by helping them up the stairs and into their apartment.
“What would they have done if I got COVID-19 because of this? Or if she had injured me while in my care?” Mitchell said of the officers, who she says left no contact information.
She is also wondering why her neighbour wasn’t taken to the drunk tank.
“That’s what the drunk tank is for. Drunk people out in public are a threat to themselves and to others,” she said.
Police said under the Criminal Code of Canada, certain criteria must be met to hold an individual, otherwise, they must be released.
“Once the legal requirements were met, the individual was released from custody and in the care of medical personnel. Once this individual was medically cleared, the SJPF was called back by medical personnel to assist in locating a competent person willing to accept responsibility,” wrote spokesperson Jim Hennessy.
Mitchell is making a formal complaint about the incident. She is asking for a formal apology and training for the officers involved.
