Inmates’ account of death at odds with jail staff

Inmates at Regina’s White Birch Remand Unit offered a drastically different account than that of the employees present when Breanna Kannick died in the facility in 2015.

Interview transcripts from three people incarcerated at White Birch with Kannick when she died were read out at a coroner’s inquest into the 21-yearold’s death on Wednesday.

Janice Goforth spoke with Regina police on the afternoon of Aug. 20, the same day Kannick died.

She told officers she saw Kannick looking “not very good” and throwing up the night prior to the death and that after correctional workers took two bags of vomit out of the cell the day prior to the death, “they should have taken her to the hospital.”

A hospital trip never happened, despite testimony from employees at the facility that Kannick requested several times to see a doctor.

Goforth said she heard Kannick call for “help” on the morning of her death, after guards told the young woman to get up so she could attend court on the morning of her death. “She was sick, and she hardly came out of her room,” Goforth told police.

Goforth, who died in July, also told officers, “the guards just ignore” inmates who ask for medical attention and that the nurse working at the time, Jennifer Berjian, should have visited Kannick more often.

Berjian described herself as an “advocate” for inmates during her testimony Tuesday.

Kaitlynd Cronley-Polkinghorn, who could not be located to give sworn testimony at the inquest, told police officers Kannick “spent a lot of time in her room” and that she kept asking “for help.”

Cronley-Polkinghorn told police correctional workers were “yelling at (Kannick)” to clean her cell on the morning of Aug. 20 and guards told Kannick to “get the f--- up,” and to “stop ignoring us.”

Officers also heard Cronley-Polkinghorn describe how she heard Kannick saying she “had to go to the hospital” because she was “too weak to get up.”

She said a nurse “sloughed her off” when Kannick asked for help, that there was “neglect” and the death was “completely preventable.”

“They should have brought her in, they didn’t want to look after her,” Cronley-Polkinghorn told police.

The inmate also said she saw employees standing outside of Kannick’s cell “holding their noses” and that correctional workers could be seen, “giggling and laughing around like hyenas.”

Tiffany Aphay, who also could not be located to give sworn testimony, told police she saw Kannick fall on the morning of Aug. 20, and heard guards telling her to get up.

Tuesday the inquest saw a video of Kannick falling backward in her cell, hitting her head on a stainless steel desk before laying motionless on the floor.

Aphay told police she heard Kannick say she “wanted to go to the hospital” but that the correctional workers told her she’ll “get over it.”

The correctional worker who had access to a screen showing a camera view of Kannick’s cell previously testified she felt “horrible” about telling Kannick to get up when she saw her on the floor and that she did not see the fall.

Another correctional worker previously testified she saw Kannick on the floor, but said she didn’t know the young woman had fallen and that she did not look as if she was in distress.