The surveillance camera footage from a Toronto apartment building, where Regis Korchinski-Paquet fell to her death last week, has been “secured and reviewed,” Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said in a news release on Monday, June 1.
Apart from the footage, the SIU investigators also conducted interviews with a subject officer, five witness officers, and four civilian witnesses. Meanwhile, it said it expects to interview family members of the 29-year-old woman this week.
As they continue to look for answers to what exactly happened before the death of Korchinski-Paquet last Wednesday, May 27, the SIU decided to not release details of their interviews and the video footage for now, “in an effort to ensure the memories of other potential witnesses are not tainted.”
The authorities released the update after thousands of people took to the streets in Toronto to demand justice for Korchinski-Paquet in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
In a previous news release from the SIU, it said Toronto Police Service officers responded to an apartment on High Park Avenue, near Glenlake Avenue, for a “domestic incident.” When the officers entered an apartment unit on the 24th floor, “they observed a woman on the balcony.”
With no further details, the SIU then said, the woman fell from the balcony a short time later and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Her death sparked outrage from the public and eventually led to a protest that was held last Saturday. The rally, organized by a group called “Not Another Black Life, began at Christie Pits Park and was supposed to conclude at Queen’s Park as what was initially planned, but protesters headed to Toronto Police Headquarters instead.
In a tweet, the organizer said they held the protest not only for Korchinski-Paquet, but also “for every known and unknown black and indigenous life lost to police brutality and white supremacy, for the targeted, for the unheard.”
The protesters were seen wearing masks and carrying signs that read, “Justice for Regis,” “black lives matter,” “we matter,” “no justice, no peace,” “abolish the police,” and “we need answers,” among others. The police estimated that the number of people who attended the rally was at 4,000.
In a statement, Knia Singh, a lawyer representing Korchinski-Paquet’s family, said the family was grateful for the outpouring support they are getting from the community and thanked the organizers “for bringing attention to this very serious matter.”
Toronto Mayor John Tory, for his part, renewed his call on the authorities to have the investigation be conducted on an expedited basis. The probe, he said, must be “thorough and transparent,” and that it must include frequent public updates.
“The results of that investigation will tell us exactly what happened,” he said in a tweet.