A coroner’s jury on Tuesday listened to a hair-raising 911 call from a Qualicum Beach man trying to get help for his friend, who was running in and out of traffic on the inland Island Highway.
The 27-minute call was played during David Poole’s testimony at the inquest into the death of Aaron Lee Prince, who was shot and killed by Oceanside RCMP officers on the morning of Oct. 12, 2017.
The inquest is mandatory under the B.C. Coroners Act, because Prince, a 35-year-old heavy machinery operator, was being detained by police at the time of his death.
It will try to determine the facts related to his death and make recommendations to prevent deaths in similar circumstances.
Poole testified that he heard Prince was having issues with his girlfriend, so he called him around 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 11, 2017.
Poole asked him if he was OK, and Prince asked that Poole drop by a mutual friend’s house in Nanaimo.
“He seemed agitated, out of sorts, not really himself, anxious,” said Poole, who offered Prince a place to stay for the night
When they got home, Poole told Prince he had to work at 8 a.m. and went to bed.
At 1:30 a.m., Prince woke Poole up and told him he had to go to the hospital. Poole told him to get some fresh air, have a glass of water and go back to bed.
Poole was awakened again at 3:30 a.m. by Prince, saying he wasn’t well and needed to go to the hospital. Poole told him to have a shower, eat some food, have water and go back to sleep.
Around 4 a.m., Poole’s wife Linda woke him up and said Prince was outside the bedroom door and really wanted to talk to him.
It was clear Prince was hallucinating. He was talking about red dresses and seeing people in the trees, said Poole. “I knew I was taking him to hospital.”
As Poole started getting dressed, Prince ran down the stairs, pulled out a knife and stabbed himself in the chest.
“I was panicking,” said Poole. “I had my wife and my children. I had a two-week-old baby. Then it was hard to get him out the door. He was saying: ‘Don’t let me go. Don’t let them take me.’ ”
Poole managed to get Prince out of the house and locked the door. He called 911 as he started to drive to the hospital.
On the recording played for the jury, Poole says: “We need an ambulance right away. I’m driving my friend. He’s got some mental instability and stabbed himself.”
Prince is yelling in the background: “Tell them I’m dying. I stabbed myself in the heart.”
Poole is having a hard time answering the dispatcher’s questions but agrees to pull over and wait for an ambulance near the highway. But as soon as he stops the car, Prince jumps out and starts running across the highway.
“Come here. Come here now. Come with me please,” says Poole, sounding desperate as cars and trucks roar by. “Stop moving. Stay here. Stop moving.”
“I’m trying to contain him. I’m sorry I’m really freaked out,” he tells the dispatcher. “I’m worried he’s going to hurt himself.”
Poole testified that Prince ran across the highway into the southbound lanes, then ran back. Eventually, Poole was able to get his friend off the road. “He was shouting obscenities and hallucinating. I was calling him by his name and looking him in the eye but he wasn’t responding,” said Poole.
Two police officers arrived at the scene in separate vehicles and moved toward them.
“They said: ‘Get on the ground and don’t f–king move,” said Poole, who told the officer Prince wasn’t stable and not to hurt him.
One officer tried to handcuff Prince, but Prince grabbed his arm and threw him in the ditch. The other officer tried to arrest Prince, but it turned into a wrestling match with the three of them in the ditch, said Poole.
After the tussle went on for a few minutes, the officers started hitting Prince in the head and on his body with batons. Then they used pepper spray, but they couldn’t handcuff him.
Poole recalled one of the officers saying: “He’s got my gun. He’s going for my gun.”
They were on the ground in the struggle, he testified, and it looked like Prince had nudged one of the officer’s holsters as they were wrestling on the ground.
One officer said: “I’m warning you, I’ll shoot you” and fired two warning shots, Poole told Victoria Young, the lawyer representing the RCMP.
A couple of seconds after the warning shots, the officer got off the ground and shot Prince in the chest, said Poole.
Today, the jury will hear evidence from the two officers and from three witnesses who saw Prince on the highway that night.
