Day two of Mesic inquest

This is the second day of an inquest into the death of a Hamilton man shot by police. In Tuesday’s testimony, we heard from medical staff and one of the officers who shot Steve Mesic.

The courtroom was packed today with friends and family, Steve Mesic’s fiancé Sharon Dorr as well as several members of the Hamilton Police Service. The room listened for an hour and a half to Constable Kevin Farrell give a detailed description of the event of June 7th, 2013 that ended up with Farrell firing four shots and Mesic winding up dead.

Farrell said he took the call and found Mesic on the side of the Lincoln Alexander Parkway. He said that Mesic appeared emotionless and had a blank stare on his face. He said Mesic quickly ran toward an area of bushes which looked onto back yards near Upper Wentworth. Farrell said he followed Mesic after another officer arrived and they heard loud banging from a back yard. He said they walked in to the area to see Mesic holding a shovel inside the back yard. He said Mesic crawled under the fence and came at him and Constable Michael McLennan. They drew their guns — yelled at Mesic to stop — and when he did not, they both fired and he said Mesic looked emotionless and they were not sure if they actually hit Steve Mesic with the shots. He said Mesic turned and walked another 20 metres before collapsing. Farrell said he quickly ran up and put cuffs on Mesic and then turned him over and made sure that he was dead.

Outside the courtroom afterwards, Mesic’s fiancé Sharon admitted that it was tough to hear those details. She was comforted outside by family and friends as well as Steve’s other friends and said that she didn’t want to speak with us as she was too frazzled by the details that she heard but we did speak with their lawyer Carr Hatch, and he did have some interesting things to say about the testimony from Constable Farrell: “Constable Farrell story has changed considerably from the evidence I had yesterday to the evidence I have now.” (Can you elaborate on that?) You’ll see tomorrow morning.”

This is a reminder of the sequence of events we have right now. Steve Mesic signed out of St. Joseph’s hospital at 8:15 on June 7th. He said he was going for a walk but he was next spotted on the Jolley Cut at about 8:30 in the morning when he jumped in front of a bus in an attempt at suicide. He was not seriously hurt at the time. He was knocked down but managed to run away. He next appeared at 9:15am at the Lincoln Alexander Parkway on the south side and he was running in and out of traffic near Upper Wentworth, near what was his home. We heard from the medical staff today at St. Joe’s who said they both thought that Steve Mesic appeared to be looking up and while he did have suicidal thoughts, he explicitly told them that he had no intention of harming himself and that the privileges he had to go for a walk was because he was a voluntary patient at the time at the hospital and could sign himself out but there was some worry.

Constable Farrell will be back on the stand in the morning and we will also hear from Constable McLellan as they will both be examined by the courts and cross-examined.