Blood Tribe mourns local cowboy who died during police arrest at Calgary hotel

Jon Wells, 42, from confederate Alberta’s Blood Tribe has been identified arsenic the antheral who died successful Calgary Police Service custody past week.

Wells is being remembered arsenic a benignant antheral who was an accomplished steer wrestler.

“A precise gentle antheral who was dedicated to the assemblage and his family, and to his, I’ll say, hobby of rodeo — helium was a relation exemplary successful that,” said Eugene Creighton with the Indian National Rodeo Finals (INRF).

Wells was the 2012 INFR Steer Wrestling Tour Champion, making him the champion successful North America successful the INFR circuit. Creighton says to scope that level of occurrence required Wells to perpetrate important clip to his signifier portion balancing a occupation and his household life.

“In rodeo helium was precise competitive,” said Creighton.

Wells died connected Sept. 17 erstwhile Calgary constabulary members were called to the Carriage House Inn.

In a statement, CPS says officers responded to reports of a antheral causing a disturbance and refusing to leave. CPS says Wells was acting erratically, adding officers attempted to de-escalate the concern but helium was not cooperative. As a result, officers deployed a taser and OC (pepper) spray.

According to police, soon aft being taken into custody, Wells went into aesculapian distress and contempt efforts from EMS, died astatine the scene.

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The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) is investigating.

“When you spot (that happen) successful your territory, it’s conscionable a traumatization of galore different deaths that person happened precisely the aforesaid benignant of way,” said Michelle Robinson, a section Indigenous advocator and assemblage member.

Wells is the eighth Indigenous idiosyncratic crossed Canada to dice successful a constabulary altercation since Aug. 29, prompting an exigency parliamentary statement past week, with advocates calling for accountability and implementation of the calls to enactment from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

“Until we spot the 94 calls to enactment and the 231 calls to justness implemented, we cognize it’s conscionable different study and we request to spot action,” said Robinson.