The police in Møre and Romsdal informed Saturday that they assisted the healthcare system in connection with an incident on an open street in Ålesund. A man needed urgent health care and was later taken to Ålesund hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The role of the police in the case is now being investigated by the Special Unitto clarify the circumstances surrounding the incident, and a possible causal link between the police’s conduct and the death.
The two police officers who were involved in the incident have status as suspects in the case, and will be questioned on Wednesday.
– Woke up by shouting
In the wake of the death, several videos of the incident, which took place in Nedre Strandgate in the center of Ålesund on Saturday morning, have circulated.
See clips from several of the videos at the top of the story.
One of them was filmed by Eduard Andrei Cristea (22), who lives close to where the incident took place.
– I was woken up by shouts from a man, says Cristea, who first told about the experience to Sunnmørsposten.
From his window he observed a man wearing a T-shirt and shorts, barefoot, and with blood on his legs.
THEN THE BASKET ROOF: Eduard Andrei Cristea woke up on Saturday morning to shouting, and caught the incident in Nedre Strandgate on camera from the window. Photo: Private
sea view
– He ran into the middle of the road and shouted for help, Cristea tells Dagbladet.
Shortly after Cristea discovered the man, a car with two civilian police officers arrived at the scene.
– They tried to calm him down, but it didn’t look like they managed it. They tried to hold him down, but then he started fighting with them. It escalated, he says.
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Basketball roof
In the video Cristea filmed, the man gets into a fight with the two police officers in the middle of the road next to a car. They get the man down on the road, and try to hold him down. A third person approaches and tries to hold his legs.
– He eventually stopped moving, but jerked every now and then, and hit his legs on the asphalt, says Cristea.
The man is said to have eventually got back up, and a few meters away from the police, before he was put on the ground again, he continues.
Woman and man found dead
Pronounced dead
Video from the incident eventually shows that the man is lying calmly on the ground, and that the police are starting CPR. An ambulance arrives a short time later.
The man was then transported to Ålesund Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
– It seemed to me that the police did their best to help him, says Cristea.
Dagbladet has been in contact with the Møre and Romsdal police district regarding the incident. They refer to the Special Unit for questions about the case.
The police apologize for the miscommunication
When a number of news media were in contact with the police at the weekend, the police denied that the man had been put to the ground.
After being confronted with the video material, the police reversed themselves, and they later apologized for errors in communication with the media.
– What happened was known, so this is a matter of poor communication from the operations manager and out to the media. This has led to a number of misunderstandings. Here the operations manager has made a mistake and that is only to be regretted, says head of the operations center in the police, Erik Steen Mikalsen, to NRK.
On Monday, Mikaelsen told Sunnmørsposten that the police were called to a situation where they encountered a person who was acting out and obviously needed help, and that it was important to get control of the man.
Police chief Ingar Bøen in the Møre and Romsdal police district said on Tuesday NRK that as the police see it, it was necessary to put the man on the ground.
Will register and publish the police’s use of force
Status as suspect
The investigating officer in charge of the prosecution, Thomas Arntsen, tells Dagbladet that the two civilian police officers have the status of suspects in the case.
Neither of the two have been charged in the case.
– We conducted some interrogations yesterday, and will conduct some today. This will include the suspects in the case, he says on Wednesday.
The deceased man has been sent for an autopsy, but it will probably take a week before they get any preliminary answers.
The police officers in the patrol car that arrived at the scene have the status of witnesses in the case, and according to Arntsen’s information, there are two officers in question.
Want witnesses and video
The Bureau also wants to question others who witnessed the incident.
– We are a little unsure exactly who filmed it, but want to interview as many as possible of those who were there, and we also want to get as much video material as possible.
Møre og Romsdal police district initially believed that the incident was not a matter for the Bureau, but turned the question around, writes Sunnmørsposten.
To Dagbladet, the head of the operations center in the police, Erik Steen Mikaelsen, told that they took contact the Special Unit on Mondayat the request that they themselves should assess whether the case should be investigated.
– We have found grounds for it to be a case for us, says the Special Unit’s Arntsen.
– What makes you consider it this way?
– When someone dies or is seriously injured as a result of the police performing their duties, our threshold for starting an investigation is very low. Here is some of what we need to clarify, whether this death is a consequence of the police’s performance of duty, he replies.
Gives no comment
Dagbladet has been in contact with the assistance lawyer for the deceased’s family, Mette Ekroll Nyland. She states that the family does not wish to comment on the case.
The family of the deceased has been informed that Dagbladet has chosen to publish videos from the incident.
