Barry Raymond Stewart, 59, was found dead on May 12th, 2011. Reports indicated he had been beaten.
Stewart was Edmonton's 20th homicide victim of the year.
Justin Caldwell Somers, 25, was charged with second-degree murder.
When the Edmonton Remand Centre at 9660 104 Avenue opened in 1979, the modern facility had more than enough capacity to house those awaiting trial.
Prisoners were no longer held in cells inside police headquarters, in Red Deer, or at the Fort Saskatchewan Jail, a facility built in 1914 to replace a guard house first erected by the Northwest Mounted Police in 1875.
The remand centre is situated about a block away from the Edmonton Law Courts. The two buildings are connected by a tunnel making for easy prisoner transfer.
Underneath the remand sits Future Station, a roughed-in LRT stop that could ferry prisoners to the Edmonton Institution should the line ever have extended that far.
Built to accommodate 388 prisoners, the remand now holds over 800 – with little room to separate those with gang affiliations, or take care of those with addiction and mental health concerns.
Additionally, another 500 prisoners awaiting trial in Edmonton are held in Red Deer and at the Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre (a facility built in 1988 to replace the old jail).
In 2006, the Alberta Solicitor General undertook to build a new remand facility on land north of Anthony Henday Drive on 127th Street.
Scheduled to open in January 2013, the facility will have an initial capacity of 1950 inmates housed in 981 cells, with an ability to accommodate 864 more.
The new remand, at 645,000 square feet, will be the largest corrections facility in Canada and one of the largest single-site prisons in North America.
With a construction price tag of just under $600 million, the facility will employ 731 staff.
As the life of the old remand centre winds down, chronic conditions of overcrowding and improper staffing made the downtown facility an increasingly dangerous place – both for inmates and those watching over them.
While the future of the current facility after it closes remains in doubt, there was no question recent history provided a record of how dangerous a place it can be.
On January 3rd, 2011, guards reported that two inmates tried to force their way into a secure observation area (known as the bubble), with one carrying a homemade knife made from a meal tray – read more »
File image showing "bubble" at right
Sources said at least one more inmate was hiding nearby, ready to join them once they overpowered the guards.
One inmate, who tried to reach a panel that could have opened up a dozen cell doors on the unit, was stopped by a guard who called for backup.
There was a struggle and arriving response team guards used pepper spray to avert a hostage situation from taking place.
A search of the unit that housed the attacking inmates produced three additional homemade knives.
As the Solicitor General's office began an internal review, they said it appeared all procedures were followed.
The guards escaped serious injury and the two inmates were charged with assault (they were originally in custody on assault and weapons charges).
"From the accounts from my members that work there, it looked like it was premeditated and planned, that they were definitely going to try and take over the control room," Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees which represents remand centre workers, said.
The incident highlighted concerns the union had about overcrowding and lack of staff, Smith said. He said the unit was down one officer during the shift when the assault occurred.
Sources inside the remand centre said it appeared the attackers, who were in the disciplinary unit, were known gang members affiliated with the drug trade on 107th Avenue who wanted to settle a score with inmates in the adjacent unit, also watched from the same bubble.
"They wanted to take over both units and were prepared to stab anyone who got in their way," the source said.
"Normally, there are three staff members in the bubble. They waited until one was called away for something else and then moved."
Several months later, on April 24th, 2011, two guards were attacked with a different sort of weapon – a heavy arm cast an inmate was sporting – read more »
"He hit and gave a concussion to one staff member and broke the other staff member's arm," AUPE president Guy Smith said. "So it was a serious incident and it was an attack with a weapon because the cast was used as a weapon."
The two officers attacked were taken to a medi-centre and released shortly afterward.
Smith believed understaffing contributed to the attack and planned to discuss the issue with Solicitor General Frank Oberle on May 11th.
"It's incumbent upon the solicitor general to heed the call from his staff – the frontline staff – that daily put themselves at risk," Smith said.
"I'm really concerned about the ongoing safety of our members there, and I'm hoping he's just as concerned, because they are ultimately his staff."
A spokeswoman for the Solicitor General's department confirmed an incident took place but denied the unit was understaffed at the time.
Smith hoped the move to the new remand centre would remedy some of the problems, but major issues such as adequate staff and safety inside the current facility needed to be addressed immediately.
On May 11th, Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, met with Alberta Solicitor General Frank Oberle with regard to the attack on the two guards on April 24th – read more »
"For us it was the last incident in a whole incidents which raised concerns for safety and security for staff in that centre and safety and security for inmates as well," Smith said after the meeting.
"We respect that fact the minister took time to listen to our concerns. We made some recommendations about increasing staffing levels in the work units.
"We're looking at staffing units by adding one or two more staff to each unit on each shift [which] would certainly go a long way. But the minister was not able to make the commitment and I understand that," Smith said.
"I operate within a budget that I'm required to adhere to but how officers are deployed and those sorts of things we're certainly willing to look at," Oberle told reporters.
"There's many ways to skin a cat but first of all we need to understand at the operational level what's going on and that's why communications are so important.
"They presented us with a bunch of facts and figures that differed from ours and we're going took at them and work together to ensure that that's a safe environment."
Oberle also suggested that adding guards may not be the best solution, saying in the past ten years staffing at the remand centre had increased 50 per cent with the inmate population only rising 16 per cent.
In addition to attacks on guards and fights between inmates, the aging facility has also seen its share of deaths – read more »
Most remand centre deaths are non-criminal, the result of drug overdoses. One such case prompted a fatality inquiry after 31-year-old Christopher Robert Lapatak died of acute heroin toxicity after he was placed in a holding tank.
Lapatak was 19 in 1993 when he molested a three-year-old boy. He was found guilty of sexual interference and was sentenced to one year in jail and one year probation.
The Crown appealed the sentence and in July 1995 Alberta's Court of Appeal boosted the sentence to four years.
In October 1999, six months after finishing his term, an arrest warrant was issued for Lapatak on a charge of breach of recognizance.
When he had been released in March, police said Lapatak posed "a risk of significant harm to the health or safety of the public."
Five years later, on November 12th, 2004, Lapatak was in jail again – this time facing charges of aggravated assault and possession of a dangerous weapon.
A fatality inquiry later determined Lapatak died that day between 2:30 a.m. and 7:50 a.m. when a cellmate tried to wake him up for breakfast.
An internal remand centre investigation failed to determine how Lapatak got the heroin while in custody.
Standard procedure called for cells to be checked between midnight and 6 a.m. to make sure inmates are alive.
But "due to complaints from defence counsel or inmates disturbed from their sleep," the checks weren't thorough, according to Judge James K. Wheatley in his fatality report.
The report said guards were encouraged to take a four-week course at the Alberta Solicitor General College within their first year of employment. Due to chronic staff shortages and course availability it often takes at least 18 months for guards to receive the training, Wheatley said.
At the time, a spokesman for the solicitor general's office said the recommendations would be reviewed to determine whether changes were needed.
"Our staff are well-trained, but drugs do get into jails," Andy Weiler said.
Before May 2011, the Edmonton Remand Centre had only witnessed a single murder.
On September 10th, 2005, 40-year-old Todd Stevenson was found beaten in a cell and later died in hospital. No charges were ever laid.
But the day after the meeting between the guard union and the solicitor general took place, another prisoner was found dead inside the remand centre ... and this time it was a clear case of murder.
Homicide detectives were dispatched at about 5:00 a.m. on May 12th after remand staff considered the death suspicious and called police. No details were immediately released.
"We will update as soon as possible and are waiting for official confirmation as to whether or not this death is non-criminal or criminal in nature," a police spokesman said.
Given the hour, most prisoners would have been bunked for the night. The centre was immediately put in lockdown.
Later in the day, police confirmed the inmate's death was a homicide.
Charged with second-degree murder was 25-year-old Justin Caldwell Somers, who had been locked up at the prison for just two days.
Somers was in custody for violating his bail conditions. He was being held in Edmonton until a May 16th court date on mischief charges in Fort McMurray where he was a resident.
After an autopsy was conducted on May 13th, investigators identified 59-year-old Barry Raymond Stewart as Edmonton's 20th homicide victim of the year.
Somers remains in custody.
Given concerns raised over conditions in the remand centre, it didn't take long for details of Stewart's death to be leaked to the media.
The Edmonton Sun reported a source within the facility told them that the death may have been prevented if the holding area where Stewart died had been adequately staffed.
Ironically, the holding cell was the same one where 31-year-old Christopher Robert Lapatak had died of acute heroin toxicity in November 2004, and the basement area was one correctional officers had often expressed concern about.
The holding cells are furnished with a metal bench attached to the wall. Mattresses are placed on the floor when sleeping accommodations aren't readily available elsewhere.
According to the Sun's source, the bench allowed someone in Stewart's cell to stomp on his head 15 times while he was asleep.
Further, Justin Somers – the cell-mate charged with Stewart's death – had been assessed by a psychologist who recommended he be housed alone due to an unstable mental condition.
However, as the facility filled up with new arrests the day before the death, the Sun's source said a senior official demanded Somers be re-evaluated. Somers was then placed in the cell with Stewart.
Within 20 hours, the 59-year-old was dead.
"There were about 60 inmates down there at the time and four officers," the source said. "I believe there's a chance that inmate would be alive if there was another set of eyes down there."
The source also said management had recently cut staffing in the area (which can hold up to 100) from five officers to four.
Another source told CBC Edmonton said that officers who came upon the incident were very shaken up by what they saw.
In follow-up stories, other media confirmed details of the Sun's story – read more »
Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, said lack of staff was a problem on the unit where Stewart was killed.
"I do know that on that unit, in the discharge and admissions unit, that they were down a staff because recently management had been pulling staff off that floor about that time that incident could have occurred," Smith said.
The AUPE president stated that staffing is reduced by one guard between 5:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. to deal with administrative duties, such as preparation for escorting inmates to court appearances.
"And our union representatives at that work site had raised that concern a week ago saying they were concerned about lack of staffing specifically on that unit."
"It's crowded down there. I don't know how crowded it was when this incident occurred, but it's an area that needs proper staffing."
At the May 11th meeting Smith had with Frank Oberle, he told the solicitor general the remand centre was "a powder keg."
"I was talking to him, that it has to be something they address before a tragedy occurs," Smith said. "Unfortunately, a tragedy has occurred."
A spokesman for the Alberta Solicitor General's office said an internal investigation was already underway, in addition to the police homicide investigation.
The results of the internal review will form the basis of a fatality inquiry which is automatically triggered whenever an inmate dies in custody.
"That inmate in question, the one who was charged, was supposed to be in the mental-health unit, but it was too full, so he was put into that holding area," Smith said, adding inmates in the mental-health unit are segregated from each other.
"It's an ongoing problem but it's been ongoing for years at the Edmonton Remand Centre.
"It's totally over capacity in terms of the number of inmates – they're double-bunked in their cells, sometimes triple-bunked, in a facility that was just not built to sustain that kind of population.
We've been saying for a long time that if you're going to have that many inmates in the environment like that, you have to increase the numbers of front-line correctional peace officers who work on those units."
Smith said the new remand centre will help, but wouldn't solve the facility's current problems.
"The whole prison is overcrowded, from top to bottom, and we know that some of those pressures will be alleviated when the new remand centre is built just purely because it's got more beds to house more inmates," he said.
"[But] that's 18 months away. We need some immediate relief now for the staff that are working there now and the prisoners that are housed there now.
"The tension at that facility is super high, the morale is super low.
"We're just saying we need more correctional peace officers on the floor not only to deal with crisis situations when they arise but to prevent them before they happen," Smith said.
Concerns over how the province has previously handled operational matters inside newly-built facilities were raised by the leader of the Alberta New Democrats.
"This government is notorious for building facilities and cutting ribbons for the election but not planning to make sure that they're properly staffed," Brian Mason said.
The union also wanted the province to create an independent body to investigate serious incidents involving peace officers in correctional facilities.
In a further twist to the story, Barry Raymond Stewart was to be released from the remand centre just hours after he was found dead.
And the crime he had committed to earn incarceration? Failing to have proof of payment on the LRT.
According to court documents, Stewart had opted to go to jail instead of paying the $110 fine for the LRT infraction.
Since 1977, Stewart had been at the remand centre 20 times, all for minor offences, mostly to avoid paying fines.
He had missed an appearance in traffic court on February 2nd, 2011, Two days later, a warrant was issued for him and he was arrested on May 10th.
As he had done many times before, Stewart chose jail time rather than pay $110 in fines for trespassing, failure to appear and jaywalking.
The man had been staying in various shelters and hotels over the past few years. He had recently stayed at the Salvation Army, and in the weeks before his death, at the Grand Hotel on 103rd Street.
"That's what makes this so sad," MacEwan University criminologist Bill Pitt said.
"When we put people in prisons for non-payment of fines, it shouldn't result in their deaths."
Sad too were Stewart's family. Unable to recover many of the slain man's personal effects, financial shortcomings only allowed them to bury the man in an unmarked plot – read more »
"He was just taking a sleep," Jennifer Carson, one of Barry Stewart's three nieces, told the Edmonton Journal.
"He wasn't a criminal, he maybe had some tickets in his time but he wasn't an argumentative person."
Carson said her family wasn't been able to find Stewart's personal possessions, and conversations with detectives and remand centre officials have given them few details.
"He was murdered there, and there's no empathy," Carson said.
"It's kind of just like, 'here you go, here's his belongings. Sorry about your luck.' What do you mean?
"He died because of someone's mistake, I don't know. That (man) shouldn't have been in that cell with him, obviously," Carson said of Justin Somers.
"When they arrested him, he had nothing to say. He said nothing. He didn't admit to guilt, didn't say why he did it. No answers."
Carson said Stewart grew up in north Edmonton, never married and never had children. He found temporary work as a painter.
Living alone, Stewart would occasionally visit his nieces' for family barbecues. Carson recalled Stewart's wicked sense of humour which was balanced with a playfulness kids loved.
"He loved his nieces and nephews, playing and wrestling with his children," Carson said. "He's not there now to make us laugh and entertain the children and babysit them for a little while."
For the family, it was their third loss in recent years.
In 2009, Carson's mother – Stewart's only remaining sister – died at age 55. Just two months later, Stewart's mother passed away.
"He lost his mom, I lost my mom, he lost his sister, so we kind of got closer," Carson said. "Now it's gone, taken because some little kid decided to have a mental breakdown and do some animal act.
"He's a great man and he didn't deserve it. I know that Barry would have never done or said anything that for that to have happened to him."
The family was also trying to cover funeral costs as best they could, asking their friends for help.
The city was paying for the plot, Carson said, but there would be no marker until the family re-paid the City of Edmonton. She called the whole affair "just sad."
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Barry Raymond Stewart's funeral was modest, with only about 15 friends and family members attending the service at Park Memorial Chapel – read more »
Reverend James Holland echoed what most had on their minds: that Stewart's death was senseless and tragic.
"He was a happy man. He was never aggressive, never [an] argumentative person," niece Jennifer Carson said.
"And he just lived his life happily.
"And now here we are because of a tragedy because of supposed overcrowding of the remand centre. Like, why does it happen? One decision led to his death," Carson said.
Just as Stewart's funeral was taking place, Edmonton Remand Centre workers staged an information picket to draw attention to their concerns about conditions inside the facility – read more »
With several inmates looking on, "Boots, not suits," was the chant heard as several dozen corrections staff gathered in protest.
"We're looking for more staff on the floor. We're looking for more boots on the floor, properly equipped with a duty belt," Derek Karbashewski of AUPE Local 003 said.
"The most commonly used piece of a equipment is a set of handcuffs that's not issued to every officer. We shouldn't have to scramble for equipment," Karbashewski said.
"What we're talking about is immediate relief to the pressures that our members feel every single day when they work in this worksite," AUPE president Guy Smith said.
"It's a volatile, dangerous environment. The fact that the prison is overcrowded, and we don't have enough boots on the floor, means they walk into a high-risk situation every single day.
"We need more correctional officers on the floor – not only to deal with crisis situations as they arise – but to prevent them before they happen."
For its part, the solicitor general's office issued a statement to media through communications director Ryan Cromb that "the Edmonton Remand Centre is not understaffed."
The communique reiterated the government's claim that while they had increased the number of correctional officers by 53 per cent, the number of inmates saw only a modest increase of 16 per cent. The province also said the new remand facility would alleviate most of the current prison's problems.
Union officials didn't dispute the numbers but said the added staff was deployed to other less sensitive initiatives.
"I agree that they've done a fantastic job with staffing," Karbashewski said. "But we need boots on the floor, specific to officers."
Smith repeated his demand for an independent body to investigate serious incidents involving corrections staff.
But MacEwan University criminologist Bill Pitt said there was nothing the Alberta government could do to relieve pressures at the remand centre until the new prison opens.
"The remand centre is just a bomb with a fuse attached to it that's been lit," Pitt said.
"It needs more space, the inmates need more treatment and it needs more personnel."
In the meantime, Pitt said the overcrowding of inmates at the facility, along with the inability to properly house those with mental health issues, will only cause current problems to escalate.
Stewart's death was the second prison homicide Edmonton police had to investigate in 2011.
On February 26th, 45-year-old Gyozo Victor Barasso was fatally stabbed at the Edmonton Institution, a federal maximum security facility in northeast Edmonton.
Update: After a four-month nation-wide investigation, first-degree murder charges were laid against two men, with three others facing counts of accessory after fact to murder and obstructing justice, in connection with Barasso's death.
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