A Nova Scotia family is suing the RCMP over how they were treated after the sudden death of their infant daughter.
Two years ago, Kayla and Mike Paradis of Windsor, N.S., discovered their baby daughter Chloe had stopped breathing while sleeping in her crib.
The couple says RCMP officers descended on the home, interrogated them, and prevented them from following their daughter to the hospital.
“It's sickening really to my stomach, every day when I think about it, that the last time I held my daughter she was ripped out of my arms and taking away forever,” said Mike.
A search warrant indicated the Mounties suspected Chloe had been murdered.
“I was scared. I didn't know where my daughter was, I didn't know how she was. I didn't know the intentions of the police officers,” Mike said.
An autopsy later revealed Chloe had died of sudden infant death syndrome.
“They were treated as murderers, and that's the bottom line,” said Chloe’s grandmother Marlene Belliveau.
This, she says, could have been prevented.
“Anybody who knows the face of SIDS knows that there's a bloody froth emanating from the nostril, which in this case there was,” she said.
Belliveau later went on to become vice-chair of Baby’s Breath, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of sudden infant death syndrome.
Kayla and Mike, seeking to do the same with the RCMP, later met with officers.
But they say that didn’t work, so now they’re taking the Mounties to court in hopes of raising awareness that way.
“I hope our story gets big enough, Chloe’s story gets big enough, that everybody will know, and everybody will have that to go off of, and hopefully people will get education out of this,” Mike said.
The family hopes their lawsuit will help save other parents from suffering the same treatment.
“She lived such a short life but she could make such a drastic change, so I hope that they do change their policies,” said Kayla.
The RCMP declined to comment because the matter is before the courts, but in a statement of contest they deny most of the Paradis’ claims.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Kayla Hounsell
