A corrections officer charged in the 2021 death of an inmate who was shown on video repeating the words “I can’t breathe” while officers swarmed and restrained him in a Manitoba jail has been acquitted in the man’s death.

Robert Jeffrey Morden pleaded not guilty to criminal negligence causing death and failing to provide the necessaries of life, following a February 2021 altercation that began as a prolonged standoff between inmate William Walter Ahmo and corrections officers in a common room of the Headingley Correctional Centre, west of Winnipeg.

Judge Cellitti said in his decision Ahmo’s death “represents a terrible tragedy” that “has no doubt had and will continue to have an immeasurable and lasting impact” on his loved ones, but that the video of Ahmo saying he couldn’t breathe does “not tell the whole story.”

“In my view, the fact that Mr. Ahmo said that he could not breathe on numerous occasions and that seemingly there was no medical assistance offered to him standing alone is not determinative of this case,” Cellitti said.