Cousin recalls seeing police attempt to resuscitate Ryan Sawyer outside Halifax Alehouse

The cousin of victim Ryan Sawyer testified at a former bouncer's manslaughter trial in Halifax on Tuesday.

The cousin of Ryan Sawyer testified she walked outside the Halifax Alehouse in the early-morning hours of Dec. 24, 2022, and saw a police officer on top of a man, trying to resuscitate him when her friend said, “Don’t look, don’t look.”

At first, Madison Brennan didn’t realize it was Sawyer until she got a different angle and made the disturbing realization. She became emotional during her testimony recalling those moments at a trial on Tuesday.

“I just kind of started spiralling,” she testified. “I was just hysterical, I was crying nonstop. I just tried to keep calling my family, I was calling my mom, I was calling (Kyle and Ryan Sawyer’s parents)… but I couldn’t get a hold of anyone.”

Tuesday marked the second day of Alexander Pishori Levy’s trial for manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death. He’s accused of choking Ryan Sawyer to death and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Levy, 40, was a bouncer, described as the head of security, at the now-shuttered Halifax Alehouse and was working that night.

Witnessing commotion

Brennan said she and five other people entered the bar that night: her, Ryan and Kyle Sawyer, two of her friends and the boyfriend of one of them.

Their arrival started out with some “cold energy,” though, because she said Kyle had tried to greet a bouncer, Alexander Levy, that he said he knew previously – who didn’t share the same sentiment.

Brennan said Kyle was “kind of shocked” after the interaction.

She said after getting inside, she went to order a round of drinks at the bar downstairs before proceeding upstairs to find a booth in a “quieter area.”

Brennan described the bar as being “really busy that night.”

But she realized three people from the group – including Kyle – had fallen behind.

Brennan testified she and Ryan went looking for them and got their attention, but when she looked back, she saw a “commotion” that was more crowded, and it “looked like people were talking heatedly” – and her group was gone.

She told the judge she didn’t know what happened in the commotion, but said she got the brothers up to the booth to “relax” and “regroup.”

“I remember just wanting to defuse the situation,” she told the trial.

She then went to the washroom, believing the situation was defused by bouncers.

During cross-examination, she agreed with Levy’s defence lawyers that the Sawyers were “heated” and emotions were elevated, but she disagreed when it was suggested they’d cause more trouble if the situation wasn’t defused.

When Brennan returned to the booth from the washroom, her cousins were gone.

That’s when she went outside and saw a police officer attempting to resuscitate Ryan Sawyer on Prince Street near the sidewalk.

Heart rhythm flatline

Glenn Sentner, a primary care paramedic, told the trial he arrived to the scene around 1:18 a.m. during the wet and rainy night, when he saw police performing CPR, so he “just went straight to the patient.”

He said, after connecting his monitor to the defibrillator the police were using, Ryan Sawyer’s heart rhythm was asystole, “which people know as the flatline.”

“There was no pulse, there was effective breathing, there was vomit … so there was no airway that I could manage,” he testified.

Sarah Boudreau, another advanced care paramedic, heard a call for other paramedics, getting dispatched for an “unresponsive male” while she was crossing the Macdonald Bridge. She decided to go “as an extra set of hands.”

“My initial thought was, ‘This was going to be a crappy Christmas for somebody,’” she said after learning the call had been “upgraded” to cardiac arrest.

She took over the scene as a paramedic after estimating about 100 people were nearby, including bar patrons waiting outside along with security and first responders.

Boudreau said Sawyer was cyanotic, or blueish-purple, in the face.

She took over the scene for EHS and decided to get Sawyer in an ambulance because of how many people were around and videoing the incident, but said Sawyer’s jaw was clenched and there was vomit every time they did chest compressions, preventing them from securing an airway.

“We could not get his heart rate back. No spontaneous breathing,” she told the court.

Bouncers testify

Jason Fraser, who was a bouncer or security staff member at the time, went with Levy to ask the Sawyers to leave after witnessing “some sort of altercation break out.”

Levy had directed the Sawyers to head outside, said Fraser, who added it appeared Ryan was leaving, but Kyle started to question why they were being told to go.

Fraser said Kyle Sawyer was “kind of persistent” when questioning the reasons for their removal, and said once they got outside, there continued to be some “more verbal aggression and agitation,” primarily from Kyle.

When asked by Levy’s defence lawyer James Giacomontonio, Fraser characterized Kyle Sawyer as being “aggressive.”

Another bouncer or doorman, Simon Wheller, took the witness stand on Tuesday afternoon.

He worked as security at the Halifax Alehouse from April 2022 until it closed in November 2024.

Wheller said Alexander Levy was the head of security, before he took over the role following Levy’s departure.

He told the trial he didn’t receive any sort of regulated or official training, until Levy conducted a training “mostly to do with IDs,” before focusing on how to approach someone if they used a beer glass as a weapon.

He didn’t recall any use-of-force training aside from that scenario. As for de-escalation training, he said any undesired responses would be corrected by senior staff.

Wheller said another man was escorted out of the bar when he went back upstairs and saw “a lot of people that appeared to be agitated.”

He said Fraser and Levy were at a booth, interacting with the Sawyer brothers, who were being asked to leave.

Ryan Sawyer seemed like he was going to leave, but “then he started to yell” general swearing “and kind of threatening gesture,” Wheller said.

During cross-examination, he testified Ryan Sawyer “had concerned me on his way out.”

He agreed with Levy’s lawyer when he suggested Ryan Sawyer was shouting threats at the other bouncers, Levy and Fraser.

“I can’t recall beyond that the specific words that he used, but I know it was meant to be threatening,” he said.

He clarified that Ryan Sawyer’s tone was threatening and that he was yelling.

Wheller went back inside after the brothers had left and were with other bouncers, but a patron then told him there was “something going on outside.”

He went out and told the trial Levy later asked him to call 911.

When asked by Crown prosecutor Rob Kennedy, Wheller said Levy’s employment ended “shortly after this incident” and that the pair have “discussed the details” about the case “less than 10 times,” most recently, about a month ago.

Officer detailed the scene

On Monday, Halifax police Const. Jairus Lamphier told Justice James Chipman he felt a “sense of urgency” after he responded because Sawyer was not moving while in a chokehold near the curb outside the now-shuttered bar.

He testified that the bouncer and Ryan Sawyer were on the ground in what he described as a “very peculiar” chokehold position, with Levy underneath Sawyer.

Levy’s forearm was “completely compressed against (Sawyer’s) neck,” Lamphier said.

Testimony continues on Wednesday.

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