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The Ontario government will hold an inquest into the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, who died in 2020 after falling from the balcony of a west-end Toronto apartment while police officers were inside.
The inquest will examine the circumstances surrounding the 29-year-old’s death, according to a Ministry of the Solicitor General news release issued Thursday. The date and venue will be announced at a later date, officials say.
Korchinski-Paquet died on May 27 of that year after she fell from the balcony of a 24th-floor apartment. The incident drew widespread community reaction and online attention.
That day, her mother, Claudette Beals Clayton, posted a video online stating that she believed police officers pushed Korchinski-Paquet off the balcony.
“The police killed my daughter, came into my apartment and shoved her off the balcony,” Beals Clayton said the day her daughter died.
The provincial Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which probes incidents including death, serious injury and sexual assault that involve police officers in Ontario, previously cleared the officers involved in the incident.
The SIU said that while police efforts to de-escalate the situation that day were unsuccessful, none of the officers involved broke the law.
The province says inquests are held at the discretion of the coroner if they determine that proceedings would “assist with a more accurate determination” about a death, if it is “desirable for the public” to have an open hearing about the circumstances and if the inquest jury could make “useful recommendations to prevent further deaths.”
Jury recommendations stemming from inquests in Ontario are not legally binding, as the Office of the Chief Coroner does not have the authority to enforce them.
Instead, at the conclusion of an inquest, the chief coroner sends any jury recommendations to named organizations, which are then asked to respond outlining how they have considered them and what steps they have taken to implement them.