Nanaimo woman claims near-death experience during RCMP wellness check

NANAIMO (NEWS 1130) — A mother of four and former firefighter says police left her so battered she thought she was going to drown in her own blood in the back of an RCMP vehicle.

Shanna Blanchard says the pandemic has made her depression more difficult to manage over the last few months and an emotional argument with her 21-year-old son, in May, ended with him calling police because he feared for his mother’s safety.

Blanchard, who is in her 40s, told Vancouver Island’s CHEK News that she had locked herself in the bathroom and was “crying uncontrollably.” RCMP were told she has access to scissors and could harm herself.

She says she was afraid of police before the incident and while RCMP tried to talk her out of the bathroom she asked for paramedics to be called instead. When she did eventually emerge RCMP told her she was being taken into custody under the Mental Health Act.

So much blood she thought she would drown: A Nanaimo woman alleges a near-death experience at the hands of Nanaimo RCMP during a wellness check-in May. New details as the former firefighter turned personal trainer/ mother of four speaks out, considering a lawsuit, on @NEWS1130 pic.twitter.com/LZmw03U3Ni

— Ash Kelly she/her (settler) (@AshDKelly) June 26, 2020

Blanchard describes refusing to be apprehended, telling police there was no risk of suicide. Then, she says she was suddenly punched in the face and knocked unconscious by one of the officers, waking up in a pool of her own blood.

Images show Blanchard’s bruised face and broken teeth and she says she also had a bruised rib.

Related article: Woman suffers serious injures in wellness check by Nanaimo RCMP; IIO investigates

A video captured by a doorway camera shows Blanchard telling police she couldn’t breathe before they placed her in the back of a police cruiser with a mask over her head.

The yoga teacher-in-training says her yoga skills allowed her to maneuver to tear the mask away, even though she had been handcuffed.

“So I curled up in a little ball in the back of the car and I was going to die there, that was it, I couldn’t breathe, I was out of oxygen, because of the blood,” she said to CHEK News.

In a video captured by a doorway camera, Blanchard can be heard telling police she can't breathe. She describes a "spit shield" mask over her head, filling with blood, causing her to believe she was going to drown in the back of the police car in handcuffs. On @NEWS1130

— Ash Kelly she/her (settler) (@AshDKelly) June 26, 2020

‘I would be concerned about asking police to check on a loved one’

University of the Fraser Valley sessional criminology professor Camia Weaver has years of experience consulting in the field of mental health and police response.

“Control and command is the typical policing approach and in a mental health crisis you do kid of the opposite. You need to take your time, you need to have conversation, you need to deal with things slowly and carefully and with empathy and compassion and that is not what we’re seeing at all,” she says.

Weaver worked with the Canadian Mental Health Association for five years as the group’s justice coordinator, also working with the Pivot Legal Society on policing issues.

She says mandatory police training in B.C. regarding mental health is not enough and more specialization is needed.

“Within their police force, in terms of responding to issues of people in crisis,” she explains, adding it would mean some officers receive in-depth crisis response training they would develop over years instead of days or weeks.

Weaver also believes that would allow police forces to develop better relationships with communities and understand the needs of individuals over multiple interactions.

After years of work in the field of mental health and policing, Weaver says trust in police is eroding.

“I would be very concerned about asking police to check on a loved one, at this point. The statistics are not good,” says Weaver.

Currently police can call on mental health professionals to join them on a crisis call or wellness check but not if there is any risk of violence or if officers believe civilian experts could be hurt, according to Weaver.

That leaves police, who are trained to use force alone, resulting in people with mental illness being treated like criminals.

“You’re treating these people like criminals and they’re not criminals, and even if they were criminals, is it really necessary to use that much force?” asks Weaver.

She says police on occasion do need to use force if they are at risk of injury or death but she believes police are rarely in enough danger in crisis response calls to justify the kind of force seen in headlines recently.

The Independent Investigations Office said earlier this week it was investigating the May 26incident.

The Independent Investigations Office said earlier this week it was investigating the May 26 incident.

“They did apprehend her and took her to the hospital. And then subsequently learned that she may have suffered some injuries during that encounter with the police,” said Chief Civilian Director of the IIO Ron MacDonald when the investigation was revealed to the public on June 24.

NEWS 1130 has reached out to Blanchard and her son for more information. Nanaimo RCMP will not comment as the matter is under investigation.