PRINCE ALBERT Police in Prince Albert, Sask. have charged an RCMP officer with first-degree murder in the death of a 26-year-old man on Tuesday evening. Braden Herman’s body was found “in a wooded area within the city,” authorities said in a news release. His death is being investigated as a homicide and an autopsy is scheduled for Thursday. Police say the officer from the Prince Albert RCMP detachment is 52-year-old Bernie Herman, a 32-year-member of the RCMP. He was not on duty at the time of the incident. The officer and the victim were known to each other but are not related, police say.
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A one-year pilot program that launched in Prince Albert earlier this month is providing paramedic services to people behind bars who are struggling with addictions.
The $300,000 program, which launched May 1, is funded by the province and aims to offer appropriate treatment in the cell block instead of sending people to the emergency room.
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Prince Albert Police Chief Jon Bergen told media this week that roughly half of the 6,000 people arrested in the city each year are intoxicated and that addiction-related intoxication is on the rise.
New pilot project allows Prince Albert police to better medically assess suspects in detention
The Prince Albert Police Service, Parkland Ambulance and Saskatchewan Health Authority have announced a new joint initiative.
The three organizations say they have teamed up to ensure people who are arrested and brought into custody by P.A. Police have access to a paramedic and on-call doctor.
The goal of the initiative is to better medically assess those in cells.
Police Chief Jon Bergen said nearly 6,000 people are arrested every year in the city and about half these arrests are the result of some sort of serious drug or alcohol intoxication.
Last year, the Prince Albert Police Service (PAPS) made nearly 6,000 arrests; about half of them were for intoxication and the numbers are on track to be similar this year.
To ensure the safety of those detained, PAPS, Parkland Ambulance Care and the Saskatchewan Health Authority, through a roster of addiction medicine on-call physicians, have partnered to offer health-care intervention to detained individuals experiencing addiction – particularly those requiring support to stabilize and detoxify.
“We have a supervisor that previously had to determine when it was appropriate to call for medical support and now with a paramedic, who has a much higher level of training as it relates to health and has the equipment to properly assess and triage somebody, we will be able to assess properly when someone needs to go to the hospital and when someone needs to be monitored here in the detention centre,” said PAPS Chief Jonathan Bergen.