‘There needs to be a change, so that another family will not suffer what we are going through’: Family of slain Port Colborne man calling for better mental health emergency response
Dwight Codrington was killed during an interaction with Niagara Regional Police last September
Sherneyce Cardnell says the last six months have been extremely hard for her family.
Cardnell is the youngest daughter of Dwight Codrington, who was killed during an interaction with Niagara Regional Police last September at his Port Colborne residence.
A report by the Special Investigations Unit explains that police were called to Codrington’s apartment following complaints from his neighbour that he had been playing his music too loud.
According to the report, Codrington threatened the neighbour with a knife, and later, the police. Five hours later, police forced their way into the apartment, and Codrington was subsequently shot.
SIU director Joseph Martino said there are no reasonable grounds to believe the officers in question committed a criminal offence.
“The operation may not have been perfect, but no such undertaking ever is,” his report said. “It may be, for example, that more ought to have been done in the course of the negotiations to address the mental health issues that appeared to be at play once it was learned that the complainant had cognitive deficits. Perhaps, but the failure to do so in the course of a tense standoff involving weapons on both sides was neither reckless nor wanton.”
Codrington’s sister Shirlan Codrington-Hector describes her brother as a deeply religious person, who loved his family, and said he was not violent.
“We used to call each other,” she said. “That’s why I sit here and I cry because those calls are no longer coming in.”
Eight or nine years ago, Codrington-Hector said her brother sustained a concussion at work, and experienced cognitive and mental health issues as a result.
She said he often used gospel music to help calm himself down if he got worked up.
He moved to Port Colborne from Toronto less than a year ago because he found the area “peaceful.”
Now, Codrington-Hector is joining with the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association (NRARA) to call for better mental health responses to emergency situations.
“It's clear that this could possibly have been avoided if there was a mental health response instead of police response,” said Saleh Waziruddin, an executive member of the NRARA. “A gun as an answer to a knife is kind of a street fight mentality. There's lots of evidence that somebody in the middle of a crisis of the mind can be talked down.”
When Niagara Regional Police Chief Bryan MacCulloch brought the proposed police budget to the region’s budget review committee of the whole on Jan. 26, Regional Coun. Laura Ip referenced a letter from the NRARA asking for a civilian service to respond to mental health calls.
MacCulloch said the problem is when someone calls 911, either fire, EMS, or police are dispatched.
Niagara Regional Police do have their own mental health response team called COAST, but COAST only responds to calls involving mental health crisis that are deemed not emergencies.
“There is no fourth entity,” he said. “Over the last five years, we've seen a 238 per cent increase in calls for service involving persons in crisis. I would love for there to be a fourth entity to be able to respond to those types of calls for service. There isn't one. And the challenge that any police service or any municipality faces is, is the intersectionality between mental health, criminality and drug addictions, which creates really volatile behaviours that we're seeing.”
But Waziruddin wants to know why EMS’s MHART (Mental Health and Addictions Response Team) team can’t be called out first, and then they could call for backup if needed.
“Even if MHART isn't the right answer, the region needs to figure out the right answer,” he said. “It's not enough to say that ‘it's easier said than done’ or ‘it's not perfect’. Whatever the alternative to the police response is, the region needs to figure that out because it's the wrong choice to send the police in for a mental health crisis.”
More than 100 Niagara residents have sent letters to regional council in support of shifting mental health calls away from police.
Codrington-Hector questioned why the police were there for five hours without calling for mental health backup.
“My brother’s not a murderer. He didn’t have nobody hostage. He didn’t have a rifle; he didn’t have guns. If they had called for a (mental health team) this wouldn’t have been a problem,” she said. “There needs to be a change, so that another family will not suffer what we are going through.”
Since the incident Cardnell has since started a GoFundMe to help pay for a tombstone for her father.
“My grieving process is harder when I visit his grave and his name isn’t there,” she said. “Our family is forever hurting, and maybe finalizing his tombstone might give us a slight acceptance.”
The fundraiser has an ultimate goal of raising $5,000.
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: After learning about the death of Dwight Condrington in Port Colborne, reporter Abby Green wanted to speak with his family and local advocates about what could be done to prevent incidents like this in the future.
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