The Korchinski-Paquet inquest was set to resume Friday in Toronto after an unexpected allegation from the dead woman’s mother halted testimony a day earlier. Claudette Beals told jurors she saw police officers push her daughter toward her 24th-floor balcony shortly before the 29-year-old fell to her death in 2020.
What Beals told the Korchinski-Paquet inquest on Thursday
Beals was describing her memories of May 27, 2020, when she told the inquest she saw officers push her daughter toward the balcony, then shortly afterward heard her call out for help. Korchinski-Paquet fell from the balcony of the west-end apartment she shared with several family members while police officers were inside the home.
Inquest counsel Roger Shallow pressed Beals on the difference between what she believed and what she had seen herself. “That’s your belief?” he asked after she summarized the sequence of events leading up to her daughter’s death. “That’s my belief,” Beals replied. “I saw them pushing Regis towards the balcony. That’s all I saw, but I saw that myself,” she said.
Her comments prompted lawyers for several parties to raise concerns, in the absence of the jury and the witness, about previously undisclosed evidence. Lawyers representing the officers at the scene said their clients had not been given a chance to respond to the allegation when they testified earlier in the week. Presiding coroner Dr. David Cameron called a recess Thursday morning that was extended into the early afternoon while counsel discussed how to proceed. The inquest was paused roughly an hour into Thursday’s proceedings, and Beals was expected to continue her testimony when it resumed Friday.
Officers described a different sequence of events
Two officers, Const. Shane Beaudoin and then-Const. Adam Vandenbrink, testified earlier that Korchinski-Paquet moved quickly to the balcony after she was asked to speak to a paramedic. She had been allowed into the apartment because she needed to use the bathroom, they said.
Beaudoin, one of the first officers to arrive that afternoon, testified he volunteered as backup when dispatch put out a high-priority call for an assault involving knives at about 5:16 p.m. He said there was no reason to fear for Korchinski-Paquet’s safety until she suddenly went out onto the balcony, knocking down an air conditioning unit on the way and using her body weight to block the door. Moments later, he said, she let go of the door and headed to the balcony rail, swinging her left leg toward the neighbouring balcony. Beaudoin said he believed at first that she had crossed over to the other balcony, and only learned she had fallen after leaving the apartment to knock on the neighbour’s door.
The inquest’s focus is wider than the fall itself
The inquest has heard Korchinski-Paquet had a history of seizures from epilepsy, often followed by confusion, erratic and aggressive behaviour and temporary amnesia. She had two seizures earlier in the day she died, before police were called over a violent disturbance involving knives. A neurologist who did not treat her but reviewed her records testified she had on several occasions shown symptoms in keeping with postictal delirium or postictal psychosis, altered mental states that can follow seizures.
The inquest’s scope includes how first responders are informed and trained about epilepsy, Cameron has said, and it is not meant to examine the watchdog investigations into the case. “There’s lots of good things to explore about epilepsy, about public support for families, about awareness of postictal delirium, about police response and how those two can intermingle,” he said before Thursday’s recess. Jurors at a coroner’s inquest do not assign legal responsibility, but they can issue recommendations meant to prevent similar deaths. Those recommendations are not binding.
The watchdog cleared the officers six years ago
Korchinski-Paquet’s death came days after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and it fuelled protests in Toronto and calls for changes to how police respond to people in mental health crisis. Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit investigated the death and cleared the officers of wrongdoing in August 2020, finding the fall happened as she tried to move from her balcony to a neighbour’s. In its director’s report, the SIU addressed the allegation that she was pushed and concluded the evidence established that this did not occur, saying no one other than Korchinski-Paquet was on the balcony. Her family rejected the SIU’s findings and later filed a $10-million lawsuit over her death. The inquest, announced earlier this year, began on Oct. 13 and is expected to last 14 days.
