Crown stays charge against Sask. Mountie who didn’t respond to wellness check

Lyle Cisna repose on the base of his place in rural Saskatchewan for hours, hemorrhage from a head up wound.

The RCMP received a call asking for someone to check on him, but an officer didn't respond until more than 10 hours later, after a second call for help.

Paramedics took Lyle to hospital in Lloydminster, where he was put on life support. The 68-year-old died the next day.

The man who hit Lyle over the head is in prison serving time for manslaughter.

The Maidstone RCMP officer who received that first call for a welfare check was criminally charged with breach of trust. But the Crown stayed that charge six months later. 

Lyle's family is still searching for answers.

"The whole thing just bothers me. It's just, it was ridiculous, the way it was handled," Allen said.

On April 3, 2024, Lyle was at his home in the RM of Brittania, north of Lloydminster.

The broad strokes of what happened to him were laid out two years later in Lloydminster provincial court at the sentencing hearing for Trey Berland, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter for causing Lyle's death. 

Crown prosecutor Danielle Elder read an agreed statement of facts that summarized witness statements, police reports and the autopsy results. After she read them out, Berland's lawyer Chris Gratton said he agreed they were accurate.

According to the agreed facts, Berland and two others — a man and a woman — arrived at Lyle's trailer in the very early morning hours of April 3, 2024, after a night of drinking. Lyle invited them inside and tried to start a fire in his fireplace, but he was too intoxicated to split any wood.

The other male visitor helped him get wood for the fire, and the four people sat inside drinking. Berland, who was 18 at the time, "was mumbling to himself," Elder said. Lyle responded, but his words were slurred.

Berland then struck Lyle with a piece of wood. The woman, upset, left the trailer and the other man followed her out. They ultimately drove away, leaving Berland at the property.

When Berland was arrested in May 2025, he was interviewed by police, Elder said. Berland said he struck Lyle with an object, but he couldn't remember what the object was. After the others left him there, Berland said he walked to the highway and hitchhiked back to Lloydminster.

Several hours later, four other people arrived at Lyle's trailer, Elder said. They found the door wide open.

"Inside, they found Lyle lying on the floor on his stomach, with an injury to the back of his head," Elder said.

They didn't check his vitals and assumed he was dead. They ran back to their car and left, eventually driving to Onion Lake Cree Nation.

Around 7 a.m. MT, one of those witnesses got a ride to Lloydminster and went to the men's shelter, where Lyle's brother Allen was staying. He told Allen that he believed Lyle was dead and that Allen should call police.

Allen called the Maidstone RCMP, requesting a wellness check on his brother and saying that his brother "may be deceased," Elder said.

"Maidstone RCMP did not immediately respond to the call for service."

"I had someone come to the shelter … ask at the front desk for me," Allen said. "I came out and they told me they were at my brother's; he was laying on the floor face down with his head split open, and it looked like he was dead."

The man was "crying" and hard to understand, Allen said. He called police.

Allen said he was told the police would get someone out there as soon as they could but they were short-staffed.

After that, Allen said he was "put out" of the shelter until about 4:30 p.m., as the shelter wasn't open during the day. He didn't have access to a different phone.

Allen said at one point he started walking out of town to his brother's place, a nine-mile trek, but figured the police would get there before him so he turned around. The shelter reopened at 4:30 p.m., and that's when he called police a second time.

"I called back at 4:30 because I'd been wondering all day what was going on," he said. "And they said, 'No, we haven't had time to send anyone out there yet.'"

Allen said that's when he called his mother in B.C., and she called his step-brother in Lloydminster, who had a vehicle and went to check on Lyle.

Some details about the incident are also contained in a report from the Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT), which was called in to investigate.

The SIRT report said the RCMP member who had been "originally dispatched" after the first call at 7:14 a.m. Left the detachment at 4:39 p.m., after the second call came in around 4:30 p.m.

SIRT does not name the officer, but court records show it was Const. Kelan Henderson.

Henderson arrived at Lyle's house shortly after the step-brother did. Lyle was "face down on the floor with a large head wound," still breathing but badly injured, Elder said in court.

Paramedics took him to hospital in Lloydminster, where he was placed on life support. 

Allen said he stayed with Lyle that night in the hospital, but Lyle was "totally incoherent." He died the next morning, April 4, 2024, around 6:30 a.m.

An autopsy concluded he died of blunt force trauma to the head, with his injury "suggestive" of a heavy object being swung and hitting his head.

Berland pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The Crown and defence jointly recommended a sentence of five years in prison, which Judge Ian Mokoruk accepted and imposed.

SIRT is an independent, civilian-led unit mandated "to investigate when someone dies or is seriously injured while in police custody or as a result of a police officer's actions."

In its report, SIRT concluded that "reasonable grounds existed to believe that an offence had been committed" by Henderson.

SIRT investigators arrested Henderson on the same day the report was released — Nov. 13, 2025 — and charged him with "breach of trust by a public officer" for failing to perform the requested wellness check.

Henderson had his first appearance in Lloydminster provincial court in December, when the case was adjourned into January, then again every month until his final appearance on May 11.

It said public prosecutions "must be satisfied that there is a reasonable likelihood of conviction and that it is in the public interest to continue with a prosecution," and if either piece of the standard isn't met, the Crown can't move forward.

"We are confident that the Crown prosecutor made the correct decision in the circumstances," Kraushaar said. "We strongly believed that the evidence in this case did not support the continuation of the charges against the officer."

Henderson was suspended with pay by the RCMP on the same date that he was criminally charged in November.

Prior to that — from April 5, 2024, until Nov. 13, 2025 — he had been placed on administrative duties, "which included not responding to further police calls for service," the RCMP said in a statement. He was also subject to an "internal conduct investigation" related to the same incident.

As of last week, Henderson remained suspended with pay, but the RCMP would not provide an update on the conduct investigation.

Paul Palango is an author and investigative journalist who has written books critical of policing in Canada, including two that were focused on the RCMP response to the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia where 22 people died.

When he first heard about the Maidstone case of an officer not responding to a call for service, "it struck me that this is not unusual for the RCMP in this day and age," he said.

"The RCMP is understaffed right across the country," Palango said in an interview. "And this has been exacerbated by the fact that they can't hire enough people to restock their personnel … and many of the people they're bringing in are not perfectly suited for policing roles."

What was "highly unusual," however, was for a province to pursue a criminal charge against an RCMP officer, he said.

"This was such an egregious case that it's clear that the Saskatchewan government put its foot down and said they are moving forward with the charges."

Through a spokesperson at the Ministry of Justice, SIRT said that after the stay, it forwarded the matter to the RCMP "for their review and consideration of any appropriate discipline."

The RCMP declined an interview request. 

In an emailed response to questions, the RCMP said there are "undeniable resourcing pressures in law enforcement" across the country, but "it is important to clarify" that the SIRT investigation into the Maidstone incident was "not a result of resourcing pressures."

SIRT also said that after the stay of proceedings, it forwarded the matter to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, which is the RCMP's civilian watchdog. The commission confirmed it has received the matter and is reviewing it before making a determination of what, if any, action may be appropriate.

Henderson has been the subject of reports from the civilian watchdog before.

In January 2019, Amanda Michayluk went out to gather firewood on a cold and snowy night near Maidstone.

The 34-year-old mother of two never came home. Her father called police and asked for a search and rescue team, and two officers — Const. Kelan Henderson and Const. Kelly Brennan — were dispatched to the family home.

They decided not to search for Michayluk that night, which the commission said was "unconscionable."

Nor did they arrange for a search the next morning, despite telling the family they would, which the commission called "an egregious dereliction of their duties."

Michayluk's body was found by a volunteer search party in a farmer's field. An autopsy concluded she died of hypothermia.

The two officers were not disciplined. The RCMP decided not to initiate Code of Conduct proceedings, and did not provide any reasons for that decision.

The commission also issued a report into the RCMP's response to allegations that an RM in the Maidstone area was acting illegally.

The commission found that "the Maidstone RCMP failed to conduct a reasonable investigation" into the allegations.

The officer who had been assigned to the file was Const. Kelan Henderson. 

Reporter/Editor

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