Pubdate: Fri, 08 Sep 2006
Source: Surrey Leader (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 Surrey Leader
Contact:  http://www.surreyleader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1236
Author: Dan Ferguson

DEATH WAS AN ACT OF DESPERATION

Shortly before he died in the Surrey RCMP lockup, 21-year-old James
Bertholet told his adoptive mother he wanted to go to jail because it
was the only place he could get treatment after he was kicked out of a
Surrey recovery house.

"He said, 'I'm not going to make it, drive me to jail,' " Langley
resident Joan McKellar recalled.

"I told him, they won't take you."

So her son, an aboriginal youth who was struggling with depression and
drug and alcohol addiction, decided to get himself arrested by opening
a bottle of booze in a Surrey liquor store and consuming it without
paying.

McKellar said police told her when they arrived, Bertholet did not
resist and immediately put his hands behind his back to be handcuffed.

He was arrested for causing a disturbance, being drunk in a public
place and theft under $5,000.

That was Monday, Aug. 30 about 7:45 p.m.

Two hours later, a police officer making his regular required check of
the cells realized Bertholet was not breathing.

Officers began CPR and called ambulance attendants, but it was too
late.

McKellar said she doesn't blame police for what appears to have been
an accidental death.

"I have no concerns in that respect," she said. "It's my sense, as his
mother, that drugs and alcohol were a factor."

She and her husband adopted James when he was seven, a troubled child
suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome who had been in and out of
several foster care homes.

"He's had some run-ins with the law," his mother said.

"He was found riding in a stolen car, and he got into some fights
(when he was drinking)."

However, her son wasn't malicious in the slightest, McKellar said,
describing how police and social workers would comment on his good
manners whenever he was arrested.

He was always polite, and never gave attitude, she
said.

"He was the kindest, gentlest soul. He had an innocence about him. But
he had issues."

She said she doesn't consider the police at fault, blaming instead a
lack of adequate resources to treat people with dual psychiatric and
addiction problems.

"There needs to be more (available)," she said. "I don't want to see
another young man go the same way."

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team and the B.C. Coroner's
Office are investigating Bertholet's death.
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