Alleged killer refused to drop knife, cop testifies
COURT: David Siu on trial for 2nd-degree murder
When the elevator door opened and Vancouver police Const. Darren Telenko stepped out into the hallway, he saw a man covered in blood and holding a knife, swaying from side to side.
Telenko, who was accompanied at the time by his partner, Const. Simon Cracknell, testified Wednesday that he pulled out his firearm and starting yelling at the man to drop the knife.
“He was very wide-eyed, disoriented ,” Tel enko said. “He had that thousand-yard stare.”
Telenko was describing the scene of an incident at a Vancouver apartment on Kingsway that resulted in a man being charged in the murder of his mother and the attempted murder of a child.
He testified that there was a child at the feet of the knife-wielding man and a female lying in a doorway behind him.
Despite repeated commands to drop the knife, the man refused to do so, Telenko told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Arne Silverman.
David Siu, the man who allegedly wielded the knife, has pleaded not guilty to the April 2014 second-degree murder of his mother, Yin Nor Hsao, 63. He has also pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of a child, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban.
Crack ne ll took out his police baton and struck the man two or three times with full force, but the man still did not drop his weapon.
The man turned his knife towards his own chest, said Telenko.
“Then he turned the tip of the knife toward me and took a step forward and that’s when I fired the first shot.”
The man moved sideways and came back again in the upright position and stepped forward again, said Telenko.
“I fired two more rounds. This time I could see the knife spin out of his hands.”
Cracknell kicked the knife down the hallway and the man confronting the two officers was held on the ground.
Cracknell scooped up the child and took her down to the lobby where paramedics arrived to care for her. The girl had suffered 16 stab wounds, but survived. Hsao, who had suffered 373 stab wounds, was dead at the scene.
Court has heard that Siu had mental health issues at the time of the slaying. He was initially deemed unfit to stand trial, but that decision was later reversed.