SIU to interview Regis Korchinski-Paquet’s family, urges ‘patience’ over investigation into woman’s death,
Investigators urge ‘patience’ as they look into woman’s death
Relatives of Regis Korchinski- Paquet are expected to be interviewed this week by Ontario’s civilian police watchdog, whose investigators are prob- ing her death after falling from a High Park highrise in the presence of Toronto police.
Until then, and as the investigation continues, the Special Investigations Unit said any details from interviews — or video footage that has been captured by the security cameras at High Park highrise where Korchinski-Paquet died — “will not be released in an effort to ensure the memories of other potential witnesses are not tainted,” SIU spokesperson Monica Hudon said in a statement Monday.
“The SIU appreciates the public interest in this case and is doing what it can to get answers to the public as quickly as possible while ensuring that the integrity of the investigation is not compromised,” Hudon said. “We ask for the public’s continued patience, and to avoid making any premature conclusions.”
So far, SIU investigators have interviewed all of the officers involved in Korchinski-Paquet’s Wednesday falling death from the 24th floor of the 100 High Park Ave. apartment unit she shared with her family. That includes five officers who were witnesses and one officer the SIU has deemed the “sub- ject officer,” meaning he is a focus of the investigation. Four civilian witnesses have also been interviewed, the SIU said.
Korchinski- Paquet, a 29-yearold Afro-Indigenous woman, died Wednesday after falling 24 storeys from her apartment balcony. Her death, alongside with the killing of George Floyd — a Black man who died while gasping for breath during an ar- rest by Minneapolis police — prompted thousands of protestors to take to the streets in Toronto-and cities across Canada over the weekend, demanding justice and decrying excessive use of force by police aagainst members of the Black community.
Amid controversy and allegations police played a role in Korchinski-Paquet’s death, the SIU, alongside Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders, the Toronto Police Service Board, Mayor John Tory and the Toronto Police Association have urged the public to wait for the results of the SIU investigation before “rushing to any conclusions.”
Saunders said Friday that he legally cannot provide information about his officers’ conduct while the SIU investigation is underway but said, “there’s a whole lot I want to say.” He add- ed that an information vacuum can be filled with “misinformation” and “a lot of it is lies.”
Claudette Beals-Clayton, Korchinski-Paquet’s mother, said she was calling police to get help for her daughter, who was in distress over a family conflict. Beals-Clayton said she wanted officers to take her daughter to Toronto’s Centre for Addiction aand Mental Health (CAMH). “I asked the police yesterday if they would take my daughter to CCCAMH, and my daughter end- ed up dead,” she told reporters last week.
According to Saunders, police received three 911calls Wednesday evening that sounded
“frantic” and referenced weapons, at least two mentioning knives. The incident was con- sidered an assault call and classified as “priority one” because there was a high probability of violence, he said.
Saunders would not confirm whether mental health was mentioned in the initial 911 calls. He said Friday that Toronto police’s mobile crisis intervention team, which includes a mental-health nurse, didn’t respond to the call because they are not sent into situations where there is a “high probabil- ity of violence.”
In a tweet Sunday, Saunders said the SIU investigation needed to be “EXPEDITED & thorough … so we can move forward together.”
Tory also called for the probe to be sped up, saying on Twitter that the investigation “must include frequent public updates, not usually a feature of SIU investigations.”
Acomprehensive and unprecedented review of police watchdog data compiled by Ontario’s Human Rights Commission, released in 2018, found Black Torontonians are “grossly over- represented” in cases in which Toronto police have used force, particularly fatal shootings.