Man gets jail time for assault and resisting arrest
By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on January 12, 2024.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com
A 28-year-old Lethbridge man has been sentenced to a couple of months in jail for assaulting a woman and struggling with the police who arrested him.
On Jan. 6 police received a call about a disturbance at the Southern Alcare Manor, a residential treatment facility in the 500 block of 7 Street South. Staff told police that Noah Seth Fox had arrived at the facility and asked to speak to his brother, but his brother did not want to talk to him and he was turned away.
“Mr. Fox became quite upset and got into a verbal altercation with staff,” Crown Prosecutor Bob Morrison said during a hearing Thursday in Lethbridge court of justice.
“At one point he went up to one staff member who was dealing with him directly and telling him that he couldn’t speak with his brother and needed to leave. As she was speaking to him, Mr. Fox grabbed her by the face and made some comments that he was going to come back and do some harm to the staff.”
Fox resisted police officers’ attempts to arrest him, but he was taken to the police station where he continued to resist police while they tried to remove a ring from his finger.
“Mr. Fox cocked his fist back several times, gesturing as if he was going to strike the officer, which required the intervention of several other officers to restrain Mr. Fox.”
Fox, who has a criminal record with convictions that include assault and uttering threats, was charged with uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm, assaulting a peace officer, mischief and assault. However, he pleaded guilty Thursday to assault and resisting arrest and was sentenced to 60 days in jail. The rest of the charges were withdrawn and he was given enhanced credit for time spent in custody since his arrest, leaving him with 51 days to serve.
Defence, which joined with the Crown in recommending a 60-day sentence, pointed out Fox suffers from some mental health issues, including bipolar disorder and possibly schizophrenia. He also struggled with drug addiction, but while he is no longer addicted, he now struggles with alcohol.
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And the merry-go-around continues on and on for Mr. Fox. Here is what I would predict, and I could be absolutely wrong should a miracle happen… but once an addict/alcoholic Always one. There is no cure except total abstinence. Yes, they may be free of the drugs but should the person just take one hit or drink again, back on the road again and who knows for how long or if death will pursue for themselves or someone else! So, what I predict is, that Mr. Fox will reunite his addiction with drugs in jail as they are much more readily available than alcohol. Immediately released from jail he will be dropped right back to the shelter where it all starts again but this time as an addict to drugs. Perhaps in his next criminal offense write-up it will say that he no longer drinks but is addicted to drugs. If this person has mental illness, it needs to be treated! I believe that our system is terribly broken and institutions (without patient freedom to come and go until Honest healing has proven successful and not meaning as current rehabs proclaim, That yes! Clean and sober for 3 months but yet that same person steps out the door and right back at it all over again). Long-term institutes need to be re-instated where the mental illness can be treated as well as the addiction. It’s society’s only chance to help people such as Mr. Fox. It’s our current mismanagement of our mental health and juridical systems that costs lives, an exorbitant amount of money with almost Nil results. Society needs and wants its peace of mind back, as well as does the chronic addict.