No reason to fear for Korchinski-Paquet’s safety until she went onto balcony: cop

Doves are released on July 25, 2020 by Regis Korchinski-Paquet's family after a public memorial and walk for justice was held to honour the woman who fell to her death from a balcony while police were in her apartment in Toronto. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Carlos Osorio

TORONTO — There was no reason to fear for Regis Korchinski-Paquet’s safety until she suddenly walked out onto her 24th-floor apartment’s balcony, a Toronto police officer told an inquest into the 29-year-old woman’s death Monday.

Const. Shane Beaudoin said he had allowed Korchinski-Paquet to go into her home because she needed to use the bathroom, and asked her to talk to a paramedic when she emerged because he thought it could help de-escalate what remained a heated family dispute.

Instead, he said, Korchinski-Paquet went out onto the balcony, knocking down the air conditioning unit on the way, then used her bodyweight to block the door.

“At this point, it’s the first time to me that the balcony has come into play. She’s made no references to it. She’s not made any sort of remarks that she’s suicidal or that she wants to hurt herself,” Beaudoin testified.

“There’s been no reason to fear for her physical safety because at this point there’s officers on scene, everybody’s separated ... So anyway, now she’s on the balcony and now I am very concerned.”

Moments later, Korchinski-Paquet let go of the door and headed to the balcony rail, swinging her left leg toward the neighbouring balcony, he said.

As she disappeared from view, the officer said he believed she had crossed over to the other balcony, so he requested that the emergency task force be called in.

“At that moment, I didn’t know that she had fallen. I thought she had gone over to the neighbour’s unit and was maybe hunkered down on that balcony.”

It was only after he’d left the apartment to go knock on the neighbour’s door that Beaudoin heard from another officer that Korchinski-Paquet had fallen, he said, at 5:43 p.m.

“That information came to basically everybody in the hallway at the same time,” including Korchinski-Paquet’s mother and brother, he said.

Beaudoin was one of the first officers to arrive at the scene the afternoon of May 27, 2020, the inquest heard. The officer testified he volunteered to serve as backup when dispatch put out a high-priority call for an assault involving knives around 5:16 p.m.

He said he met an officer from a different division outside the building and the two of them went up together after a resident let them in at 5:29 p.m. They could hear shouting as they went up the elevator, he said.

Asked if he and the officer discussed how to approach the situation, Beaudoin said he didn’t have any notes about making a plan.

Even once they arrived upstairs, there was a lot of information coming at them and it was hard to know who the primary aggressor was, he said. The fact that it was a family dispute made matters “more murky,” he said.

Beaudoin said he heard before arriving that Korchinski-Paquet had experienced seizures earlier in the day, but only learned about postictal delirium through the inquest.

An agreed narrative read at the inquest last week said Korchinski-Paquet had a history of seizures from epilepsy and often experienced confusion, “physically and verbally abusive behaviour,” and temporary amnesia afterward.

A neurologist who did not treat her but examined her records testified that Korchinski-Paquet on several occasions showed symptoms in keeping with postictal delirium or postictal psychosis — both altered mental states that can follow seizures.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2026.