Man tried to prompt Eaton confession
Tended one of two killed in 2012 mall shooting
An off-duty construction worker with minimal first-aid training and an old conviction for smuggling drugs tried to elicit a “dying confession” from one of the wounded victims of the Eaton Centre shooting two years ago.
Paul Santos was standing outside the downtown mall when panicked crowds started to flee the building on the evening of June 2, 2012. When he heard that someone had opened fire in the food court, he rushed inside.
In security footage shown in court Monday, Mr. Santos is seen kneeling over the thrashing, bloodied body of Nixon Nirmalendran, one of seven people shot that day and one of two to eventually die. He appears to manipulate the young man’s body, rolling him from side to side to pull off his down vest and searching through his pockets.
Under cross-examination, Mr. Santos offered several explanations for his actions. He was trying to help, he said, and he was “possibly” curious. When asked if he spoke to the mortally wounded man, he replied, “To be honest with you, I was trying to get a dying confession.”
“You know something about the law, you know something about the importance of dying confessions?” defence lawyer Dirk Derstine asked. “Yes, sir,” Mr. Santos responded. Mr. Santos, who flew from Calgary to testify, said he believed at the time that the shooting was a random event. However, according to Mr. Derstine, he earlier told police he thought the shooting was gangrelated because of “the stereotype of two black males.”
He told Mr. Derstine he was searching Mr. Nirmalendran — a man shot eight times just moments earlier — for identification and for weapons.
“If you had found a firearm, what would you have done with it?” Mr. Derstine asked him.
“Probably armed myself,” he replied.
Mr. Derstine and Mr. Santos sparred during a contentious and often slightly bizarre cross-examination. At one point, they argued over the definition of the word “vest.” At another, Mr. Derstine mentioned Mr. Santos’s criminal record, telling the court he was sentenced to 18 months in jail for smuggling marijuana as a young man.
Mr. Santos testified that he tried to assess Mr. Nirmalendran’s wounds. He added that, as a teenager, he had taken several weekend first-aid courses, though he admitted he had received no formal first-aid training as an adult. Despite video evidence suggesting otherwise, he also said he never rolled Mr. Nirmalendran over.
Hundreds of people fled the Eaton Centre after Christopher Husbands opened fire that night in the basement food court. Mr. Husbands stands charged with two counts of first degree-murder and five others of aggravated assault stemming from the incident.
His defence team has admitted he was the shooter, but they deny he planned to kill anyone when he went to the mall that day. His trial, which began Oct. 10, is scheduled to continue into November.