Daughter Of B.C. Man Fatally Shot By Police Tells Inquest She Could Have Helped

BURNABY, B.C. — The daughter of a man fatally shot by police outside a British Columbia casino says she likely could have prevented her father's death had she been called in to help officers talk him down.

 

Nousha Bayrami told a coroner's inquest on Tuesday her father, Mehrdad Bayrami, 48, had been on medication for severe depression prior to the armed standoff that led to his death in November 2012.

 

"You need to give people a reason to live and to want to make change, and he was never given that chance," Bayrami said, adding that she believed her father also suffered from undiagnosed borderline personality disorder.

 

"Had I been involved there's no way he could have continued on the line that he did," she said.

 

Bayrami's father was shot and killed by police following an hours-long standoff outside New Westminster's Starlight Casino. Officers had responded to reports from casino employees about a man seen through live-security footage threatening a woman with a handgun.

 

A coroner's inquest was tasked with considering whether to make recommendations aimed at preventing similar events from occurring, though it cannot assign blame.

 

Bayrami told jurors she felt abandoned and manipulated by police while the incident was unfolding and that she would have appreciated support while trying to locate her father and learn what had happened to him.

 

"I was panicked and in complete shock. It was surreal," she said about receiving a call from police telling her only that her father had been seriously injured and taken to hospital.

 

"They wouldn't tell me anything about him."

 

 

The day culminated with her having to sneak into the Royal Columbian Hospital's intensive-care unit and identifying her father by his feet, which were poking out from underneath a hospital blanket, she said.

 

"I didn't see his face or anything, just his feet and I knew they were his because I know his feet," she said, voice breaking. "He was always too tall for blankets."

 

A collection of images from Bayrami's childhood, showing the father-daughter pair eating birthday cake or making silly faces, was projected on the wall throughout her testimony.

 

She told jury members about a positive upbringing with a supportive father, but said his mental health appeared to deteriorate as she grew older and that she decided to limit contact with him a year and a half before his death.

 

Bayrami spoke forcefully about the need for more public education to combat the stigmas surrounding mental illness.

 

Earlier in the day, the assistant deputy minister in the Public Safety Ministry told the inquest a formal review into Bayrami's father's death wasn't off the table.

 

Clayton Pecknold said he would consider ordering a review into the circumstances surrounding the man's death depending on recommendations from the jury.

 

He didn't want to launch a parallel process while the coroner's inquest was taking place, he said.

 

The inquest has heard from dozens of witnesses, including Delta Police Const. Jordan MacWilliams, who was responsible for shooting Bayrami's father.

 

He testified he fired the shot when he saw the man pointing his gun directly at police.

 

MacWilliams was originally charged with second-degree murder, but the charge was eventually stayed.

 

Bayrami filed a lawsuit against the officer and the City of Delta claiming he shot her father without warning or justification, but the lawsuit was later dismissed by consent from all parties.