Police, fireys accused of excessive force after injured man dies following Brunswick arrest

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The death of a Brunswick man will be investigated by the homicide squad and the Coroners Court after he became unresponsive while restrained by two police officers and several members of Fire Rescue Victoria.

Kristian Stock was injured and appeared drug-affected when he was arrested in Brunswick on June 6. The 43-year-old died five days later in Royal Melbourne Hospital when his family agreed to remove him from life support, a coroner was told on Tuesday.

Video obtained by this masthead from a witness also reveals Stock was sprayed with oleoresin capsicum spray while held in a prone position for almost three minutes.

On Tuesday, lawyers acting for Victoria Police and Ambulance Victoria told coroner Audrey Jamieson that the circumstances surrounding Stock’s death in custody would be the subject of internal reviews, while legal counsel for Fire Rescue Victoria said it had not reached a decision.

Stock’s family wants answers and fears that emergency services workers missed a series of opportunities to defuse the situation before his arrest.

A relative and family spokeswoman, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitives of the case, claimed that excessive force had been used.

Kristian Stock, 43, died on June 10 after he was restrained and arrested.

“The events that led to Kristian’s death have been tragic and in the family’s view, should never have happened – he was not himself on the day he was killed, and the response by the emergency services who attended should have been to help him in his vulnerable state, and certainly not to use the excessive force,” she said on behalf of the family.

She paid tribute to the 43-year-old artist, who had no criminal background, other than a traffic infringement for drug-driving in 2020.

“We are devastated by the loss of Kristian. He comes from a small, close-knit family, and he is very loved by those who know him. He is known by friends and family as a charismatic and creative person.

“Kristian has suffered some significant personal blows in recent years. This shattered his confidence and led to a recent period of withdrawal from social contact,” she said.

The family said Stock deserved to have been treated with respect and compassion.

“We are seeing too often this sort of reaction by the authorities to vulnerable people – whether it is First Nations people, or people with disabilities, this response is not acceptable and causes utter devastation to the families left behind,” she said.

A direction hearing in the Coroners Court was told Stock had been acting erratically and appeared drug-affected almost 10 hours before his arrest.

Lindsay Spence, counsel assisting the coroner, told the court that an employee at a local Woolworths store had called triple zero about 1.20pm, after noticing Stock was “mostly incoherent” and bleeding from his right ear. However, he had left the store before police arrived.

Stock later went to Brunswick police station at 2.53pm to report a disturbance at his apartment. A constable who took the complaint assessed Stock as being “significantly affected by drugs” and advised him to call triple zero if he had further problems at his property.

Spence told the court that Stock left his Albert Street apartment to buy dinner from a nearby food truck about 8.30pm. A couple who knew him and lived in the same apartment building called triple zero again after noticing Stock was bleeding from the face and appeared to be under the influence of drugs.

When paramedics arrived just after 9pm, they tried to treat Stock and provided him with a thermal blanket.

However, he discarded the blanket, which blew into overhead powerlines and caused a power outage near the intersection of Sydney Road and Albert Street.

Fire Rescue Victoria was called to respond to the electrical fault, while police were also contacted when Stock began walking into traffic.

Fire Rescue Victoria firefighters responded to a power outage and detained Kristian Stock.

Stock was taken to the ground at 9.43pm, but was found to be unresponsive two minutes and 48 seconds after the physical interaction began, Spence told the court.

Paramedics used a defibrillator and began CPR after he lost consciousness, but he was later diagnosed with an unsurvivable hypoxic brain injury at Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Spence said autopsy results were still to come but preliminary toxicology testing revealed Stock had amphetamine, opioids and cannabinoids in his system.

He said the inquest would continue later in the year, while Stock’s death was also under investigation by the homicide squad, with oversight from the force’s Professional Standards Command.

Robinson Gill lawyer Jeremy King, who is acting for the Stock family, declined to comment.

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