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Years after 17-year-old Ben Teague died during an all-night “team-building” event hosted by the Oakville Rangers junior hockey team, the Ontario Provincial Police has found that four York Regional Police officers involved in the investigation into his death were negligent in their duties.
Detective Sergeant Jennifer Ross of the OPP’s Professional Standards Division concluded in a report dated Oct. 23, 2023, that allegations of “dereliction of duty” against Detective Sergeants Heather Bentham and Kenneth Golding, Detective John Loughry and Sergeant Robert Worthman were substantiated. Ontario’s police watchdog, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, commissioned the OPP to investigate York Regional Police.
The OPP report had not previously been on the record. Ben’s parents, Susan and Greg Teague, said they were initially told by the Ontario Ministry of Intellectual Property and Resources that it could not be shared publicly. When they recently asked the agency to clarify its authority to stop them from making the report public, they said they were told it could be shared.
It is unclear whether York Regional Police has disciplined the officers who neglected their duties.
York Regional Police did not respond to a request for comment. Wayne Emerson, chair of the York Regional Police Services Board, wrote in an email that the board was not involved in the investigation into the police department’s alleged negligence.
On September 13, 2019, Ben, along with 13 teammates and four coaches, participated in a weekend event at the YMCA Cedar Glen Outdoor Centre in Schomberg, Ontario. In addition to a two-night stay in a cabin at the facility, the weekend event also included planned team-building exercises.
The Ontario Provincial Police report states that after Ben and his teammates drank alcohol on the first night of training camp, Ben told coaches Ian Black and Alex Soucie around 5 a.m. that he was feeling pain in his leg and told them he had been drinking. Due to the pain, someone called 911 and Ben was taken to Brampton Municipal Hospital by ambulance, where he was pronounced dead at 7:07 a.m. on September 14, 2019.
Two years after Ben’s death, the police have yet to interview all Rangers players and coaches. According to reports, in September 2021, Dr. Chris Venama, the coroner in charge of the case, issued a search warrant requiring the police to obtain a list of players and personnel participating in the training camp.
(To this day, several players have yet to be interviewed.)
In January 2022, after determining that Ben’s cause of death was acute myocardial injury with necrosis caused by recent alcohol consumption, Greg and Susan Teague filed a $1 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Rangers, the team’s coaches, the Ontario Junior Hockey Association, and the YMCA camp where Ben died.
In a statement of defense, the Rangers, their coaches and Oakville Personnel Management argued that the player code of conduct “prohibits underage players from consuming alcohol. The Oakville Rangers have a zero tolerance approach to alcohol consumption. All players, including Benjamin, are aware that they are not allowed to bring alcohol to events or consume alcoholic beverages while attending events.”
The defendants also argued that the coach “exercised reasonable and appropriate supervision of the players, considering their age and experience. The players were 16 and 17 years old.”
A trial date has not yet been set.
Another year later, on April 3, 2023, the Teagues filed a complaint with the OIPRD, which assigned the OPP to investigate the conduct of the York Regional Police.
In an October 2023 report, the Ontario Provincial Police detailed how the four officers neglected their duties.
According to York Regional Police policy cited in the report, officers investigating a death are supposed to maintain the integrity of the evidence by segregating witnesses to ensure they do not discuss their observations with one another; and observe and identify all persons or vehicles leaving the scene, including potential witnesses.
“This did not occur,” the report states. “Sgt. Wassman did not obtain any statements from the boy or the coach, nor did he commission any statements from them while at Cedar Valley, and only recorded contact information in his notebook. Furthermore, it is not believed that Sgt. Wassman separated the boy from the coach.”
OIPRD, which changed its name in April to the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency, said York Regional Police Chief Jim Killby also reviewed Teague’s complaint.
“During the review process, Superintendent Killby reviewed all investigative actions and notes, requested that Detective Loughry send him the completed overview, and spoke with the Coroner’s Office,” the OPP report states.
“The first thing he noticed was that the complaint was made in March 2022 and the death investigation was conducted in 2019. He noted that there were three different OICs (OICs in Charge) on file, which he said was not good customer service. He also noted that there were long or extended breaks from when the investigative activity came into their system, which meant that work was not being done. The witness list was short; however, there were indications that there were 13 boys at the camp. Superintendent Killby said investigators should have at least spoken to the boys, coaches and family members, but this was not the case.
“Some protective measures should have been taken at the scene, but they were not implemented, and people immediately assumed that this must be a medical emergency and treated it as such from the beginning. Frontline officers should have written down these names.”
The OPP report states that, in accordance with York Regional Police policy, officers did not seize Ben’s cell phone and belongings, but instead placed Ben’s belongings in his truck, which was driven to Tiggs’ home by one of his trainers.
While OIPRD asked the OPP to investigate York Regional Police’s conduct, York Regional Police retained the service aspects of Teague’s complaint, specifically regarding delays in the police investigation. York Regional Police said it determined its officers’ service met the organization’s standards.
An independent third party, Hockey Canada, is also investigating the case, looking into the conduct of the Rangers coach in relation to Ben’s death.
In a W5 story aired in March 2023, Susan Teague explained that when she realized Ben’s death was Not properly investigated Without permission from the OHF or the police, she began to conduct her own investigation. She began inviting Ben’s teammates and their parents to her home to find out what was happening at the camp.
The Teague family was told that in September 2018, during Ben’s first year with the Rangers, during a team-building activity at training camp, Ben was one of the rookies asked by senior players on the team to strip naked and try to avoid being “tagged.”
Ben was the last player caught and won the team’s Rookie of the Year award, according to Susan Teague, who said Rangers coach Mark Morrow told her.
“Our story is a story about hockey culture because we’ve been told time and again that team cohesion is formed through sharing secrets,” she said. “After Ben died, a lot of boys told us, ‘What happens on the team stays on the team.’”
The parents of young Ontario hockey player Ben Teague have been searching for answers since he died while recuperating with the team in 2019. The book What Happened to Ben explores the mystery of what happened and the code of silence in hockey culture
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