Recent deaths prompt questions about police wellness checks

The deaths of multiple people during police wellness checks in recent months in Canada has raised questions about law enforcement's ability to handle mental health crises, especially among people of colour.

"We need to rethink who does wellness checks, but we also need to understand why those interactions play out the way that they do," said Ingrid Waldron, an associate professor at Dalhousie University's School of Nursing whose research focuses on health outcomes for Black and Indigenous communities.

On June 4, Edmundston Police Force officers fatally shot 26-year-old Chantel Moore, an Indigenous woman originally from B.C., after they were called to conduct a wellness check. She was the first of two Indigenous people in New Brunswick to die at the hands of police in a span of eight days.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/police-wellness-checks-deaths-indigenous-black-1.5622320