Search at Manitoba prison after fatal attack discovered nearly 40 weapons, report into 2 inmate deaths says

A search at a Manitoba prison after the death of an inmate who was fatally beaten during a gang fight turned up almost 40 homemade weapons, according to an inquest report into that man's death and another in 2018.

Max Maurice Richard, 42, was stabbed and thrown over a railing at Stony Mountain Institution on Jan. 7, 2018. A few months later, Adam Monias, 25, died in hospital after he was beaten with a baseball bat in the prison's recreation yard.

A four-day May inquest into the two men's deaths — required under Manitoba law for in-custody deaths — found the prison faces challenges in controlling the "surprising" number of weapons inmates carry or stash, as well as challenges with evening staffing.

According to the inquest report, Richard, who was serving a life sentence at the federal institution north of Winnipeg for second-degree murder, was not part of an identified "security threat group" — a term used in corrections to refer to gangs — when he was first incarcerated in early 2017.

However, in the fall of 2017, several members of the Saskatchewan Warriors gang were transferred to Stony Mountain, where they began recruiting new members, including Richard, according to the report. They also began enforcing a "range tax," which caused a rift with other gangs in the prison.

Corrections Canada's board of investigation, which launched a probe into Richard's death in 2018, also discovered during their investigation the Saskatchewan Warriors owed a previous debt to Indian Posse, which they had refused to pay.

Pushed over railing, beaten

On the night Richard was killed, inmates from the prison's H range — where Richard was housed — and its G range were returning to their ranges after shared exercise time. Normally, inmates are not allowed to enter another range.

However, on that night, three prisoners from G range, all affiliated with the Indian Posse gang, according to the report, followed other prisoners into the H range.

Seconds later, they began attacking the other inmates, sparking multiple fights.

During the chaos, one inmate — Victor Ross, affiliated with Gangster Crips gang — pushed Richard from his cell into a common area through a barrier door.

Corrections officers activated the barrier doors in an attempt to contain the inmates, but Ross stabbed Richard and threw him over the railing of the common room, the report says.

Ross then ran to the floor below and continued kicking and stabbing Richard, with two Indian Posse members — Michael Okemow and Wilfred Cook — joining the attack.

The attack didn't end until a corrections officer loaded a gun and ordered the men to drop to the floor.

Richard was taken to a Winnipeg hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Ross, Okemow and Cook were all charged with second-degree murder in Richard's death.

Attacked with bat

The August 2018 death of Adam Monias, who was serving a life sentence at Stony for second-degree murder, also stemmed from gang rifts, the inquest report says, even though he was not part of any gang in the prison.

On the evening of Aug. 16, Monias was part of a group of prisoners in an outdoor recreation yard for an exercise block. That group also included members of both the B-Side and Indian Posse gangs.

At the time, inmates affiliated with the B-Side and Manitoba Warriors gangs were being reintegrated into the medium security unit's general population, the report says — meaning were exercising at the same time as the general population.

Moments before Monias was attacked, an inmate affiliated with B-Side exiting the yard through a breezeway was attacked by several Indian Posse members, who kicked, punched and stabbed the inmate 26 times. Other inmates joined the fighting on both sides.

The fighting moved into a fenced-in corridor connecting the breezeway with the recreation yard. Corrections officers pepper-sprayed the fenced-in corridor. As inmates gathered to see what was going on, officers locked the barrier between the yard and the fenced-in barrier, so that none of the 74 inmates still in the yard could join in the fighting.

At that point, there were no Indian Posse-affiliated members left in the exercise yard, but Monias — who was not affiliated but was considered friendly with the Indian Posse — was still in its basketball court.

He was approached by several Manitoba Warriors-affiliated inmates, three of whom began punching him in the head. Another — Braiden Moneyas, who was armed with a baseball bat — struck Monias in the head with the bat, and then hit him twice more after he fell to the ground. Another inmate kicked Monias twice in the head.

The attack didn't end until an officer watching the yard from a tower fired her rifle and then pointed it at the inmates, the report says.

Monias was taken to hospital with multiple head fractures and extensive brain damage, and died that night.

Following Monias's death, a search of the fenced-in corridor, breezeway and recreation yard at the prison uncovered nearly 40 prison-made weapons.

Moneyas and three other inmates — Kane Moar, Raymond McDonald and Michael Oksasikewiyin — were charged with second-degree murder in his death.

Moar pleaded guilty to assault, but was also found guilty in 2020 of second-degree murder in the killing of Winnipeg group home worker Ricardo Hibi.

'Should be possible' to reduce, eliminate weapons: judge

Manitoba provincial court Judge Robert Heinrichs, who wrote the inquest report, dated Dec. 2, said while it was surprising to find so many weapons in a controlled and confined space like Stony Mountain, "it should be possible to simply reduce, if not eliminate, them."

However, Heinrichs —  who noted because Stony is a federally run institution, the provincial inquiry had no jurisdiction to make recommendations on policies — wrote that several witnesses who worked at the prison testified about the challenges of searching for weapons, noting the time and resources searches take.

They also noted those searches have to take into account inmates' Charter rights, Heinrichs wrote.

Heinrichs also noted the prison recently added a mobile walk-through metal detector, which could be used to screen inmates as they leave their cell units to go to activities like shared outdoor recreation times.

However, the challenge for the prison is that that is "a time- consuming undertaking," he wrote, meaning "it is always in conflict with the inmates' rights to not be searched continuously," and the requirement to give them adequate fresh air and recreation time.

The provincial judge also wrote that while the prison "has a comprehensive plan and ever evolving task in identifying the dynamics of the various [gangs] within the institution," the "selective and secretive nature" of those gangs in the prison "makes it impossible to prevent every instance of violence that occurs."

Stony "knew there were potential risks in accepting the inmates from the Saskatchewan Warriors" in 2018, but that "appeared to be as smooth a transition as could be expected," he wrote.

However, "perhaps a return to not having shared exercise times while the Saskatchewan Warriors were being introduced and integrated into the unit could have prevented" the attacks that led to Richard's death, he wrote.

He also wrote that a witness said no outside gang inmates have been brought into the prison since Richard's death.

Heinrichs also noted both attacks happened during the evening hours, when witnesses testified staffing is at a minimum.

"All of the witnesses agreed that having more staff working during those times would be helpful," the judge wrote.