‘He was very kind’: Partner of First Nations man who died after being in RCMP custody looking for answers

Eugene Duncan Joseph and Dawn Agno. Photo courtesy: Dawn Agno.

APTN News: After laying him to rest just five days ago, Eugene Joseph’s partner still finds it difficult to talk about him.

Joseph, 47, a member of Tl’azt’en First Nation, died Nov. 11, just days after being taken into the custody of Prince George RCMP.

Dawn Agno told APTN News that Joseph had been her partner for about two years.

“They call him Duncan up here, but I’ve only known him as Eugene,” she said. “To me, he was very kind, very generous. He always tried to help the people on the street. He would take them out for lunch if he saw they were hungry if he had money.”

Agno describes Joseph as “loud, outgoing, and charismatic.”

“He’d always be the life of the party, he’d always be the one that the group would follow,” Agno said.

He was a father of five children, although he didn’t have custody of them. He also worked on the land.

“He was really good in the bush and fishing. He would teach people how to act in the bush to avoid grizzly bears when they were out fishing. He was a protector of people,” Agno said.

“People in the Tl’azt’en territory are fish hunters, the salmon come up this way and he was a professional in the bush. He knew about the salmon, moose, and he was a tracker, a firefighter and could run crews of men to fight fire. He was an amazing man.”

Agno said she’s trying to find out exactly what happened to her partner. What has been made public has come from B.C.’s Independent Investigation Office [IIO]which investigates all police-related incidents that result in serious harm or death, whether or not there is any allegation of wrongdoing.

“Information provided by the RCMP states that on November 6, 2024, officers detained a man for being intoxicated and transported him to the police detachment,” the IIO said in a Nov. 13 news release. “Later that night, the man was found unresponsive in a cell during a routine check. First aid was administered, and the man was then transported to the hospital where he was in critical condition.”

The release goes on to say the IIO was notified of the incident shortly after it occurred and commenced an investigation.

“On November 11, 2024, IIO investigators learned the man died in the hospital. Initial investigative steps will seek to confirm what if any role police action or inaction played in the man’s death,” said the IIO release.

Struggle with mental health issues

Agno said Joseph was struggling with his mental health after losing his father in September and had been actively seeking help.

“We were trying to access help for more than a month. We were also in the psychiatric ward several times for more than a month,” Agno said. They also tried to access care through the Tl’azt’en health centre, Agno said, but were turned away because they had not been living on the reserve the previous 30 days.

APTN reached out to the health centre but was told they would not be making any comment on Joseph’s case.

Agno said they had also made trips to the emergency room at University Hospital of Northern BC in Prince George because Joseph had been experiencing seizures in the weeks leading up to his apprehension by RCMP for intoxication.

Agno said they never did determine what was causing the seizures. APTN has inquired about whether the hospital would be investigating Joseph’s case, but hasn’t heard back.

“When we would take him to the hospital, they would just give him Ativan [an anti-anxiety medication]. He was scared,” Agno said. She doesn’t recall the date of their last visit to the hospital but said they waited all night for help.

“They gave him three Ativan and told him to go home. We were there from two to seven in the morning.”

After leaving the hospital, Agno said Joseph took off.

“When he went missing on me, I couldn’t find him anywhere. You need 24 hours to report someone missing, and it was about 28 hours when I finally got the courage to call [police],” Agno said.

“I get scared when you do wellness calls because they end up dead.”

Not long after she called police, Agno said a counsellor at the hospital who had been helping calm Joseph down on their previous visit called her.

“He said ‘I’m sorry to tell you this but he was brought in and they said he had a heart attack,’” Agno said. “He was brought in intubated from the jail.”

Agno doesn’t know what happened at the jail, but she thinks going forward, an outside agency should be sitting in the detention area.

“Because there’s violence going on to our people. And there’s no way to see,” Agno said.

Joseph is the 12th First Nation, Inuit or Métis person to die in Canada while interacting with police since Aug. 29.