SUDBURY - The coroner's inquest into a 2018 standoff in Garson explored whether a dying cellphone battery contributed to the incident ending with a man taking his own life.
Thursday was Day 4 of the inquest into the death of Steven Thornton, who died by suicide following an overnight standoff with police that occurred Sept. 12-13, 2018.
The five-person inquest jury has so far been told that Thornton, 63, and his wife were celebrating her retirement during the evening of Sept. 12, 2018, when an argument erupted. Thornton who had been drinking alcohol, loaded a 20-gauge shotgun and fired two shots at his wife as she ran in fear from their home at 44 Sunny St.
While his wife hid in a neighbour's home, Thornton barricaded himself inside his home for the next 18 hours until police found him in a bedroom, dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gun shot to the head.
You can read Day One of testimony here, Day 2 here and Day 3 here.
So far, the inquest jury has heard that Greater Sudbury Police Service (GSPS) responded after getting 911 calls around 6:14 p.m. Sept. 12, 2018, after the shooting.
Police responded and set up a perimeter around Thornton's home. GSPS established communications and set out to convince Thornton to put down his shotgun and surrender peacefully.
Thornton was amicable enough on the phone, but in recorded conversations revealed he was distraught at having shot his wife and said he couldn't deal with the idea of being held in custody, either in jail or in a mental health facility.
It was during the early hours of Sept. 13, 2018, that the operational command of the incident was being handed over to the Barrie Police Service, to allow GSPS personnel, who had been on scene all night, a chance to rest. The formal command document was signed at 6:35 a.m.
On Thursday, coroner's counsel Grace Alcaide Janicas, questioned Sgt.Toni Talarico of the Barrie Police Service (BPS), about her role as a crisis negotiator on the scene at 44 Sunny St. in Garson.
GSPS Insp. Daniel Despatie testified on Wednesday that the Sudbury police response had included a tactical response team, a team of negotiators, patrol officers to establish an outer perimeter containment area and himself as an incident commander.
Despatie explained that due to the length of time of the incident, it was decided that relief was needed. The barricade incident had begun just after 6 p.m. but most of the officers called to the scene had already been on duty for the previous day shift. Some officers had been on duty for more than 14 hours.
It was about 9:30 p.m. on Sept. 12, 2018, Despatie said that an effort was made to contact the Ontario Provincial Police to come in as a relief team.
The OPP responded that their officers were already involved in another incident and that no one would be available to travel to Sudbury until 5 a.m. the following day.
Despatie said he brainstormed with the OPP officer to determine whether there were any larger municipal police services that had a fully qualified and fully certified negotiation team available.
It was determined that Barrie Police Service could drive to Sudbury and help out.
Talarico of BPS said it was around 5:15 a.m. that Greater Sudbury Police S/Sgt. Derick Rose handed over the job of negotiating with Steven Thornton to her.
Part of the transfer would involve switching Thornton’s home phone, which was linked to a Rose's GSPS to facilitate communication, to the phone line connected to the BPS command centre vehicle.
Talarico described some of the moments when both she and Rose were in the Barrie police command post vehicle. She recalled discussions with S/Sgt. Rose about issues that Thornton was comfortable speaking about and things he was not comfortable with.
This would include not talking about the dispute with his wife, not talking about a brother who had committed suicide several years ago and not talking about the idea of suicide-by-cop, which Thornton had mentioned the day before.
It was around 5:17 a.m. that she connected and began speaking to Thornton. Talarico said it sounded like Thornton was waking up from a nap and said he sounded confused with what was going on.
Talarico said after speaking with Thornton for several minutes she believed she had established a good rapport with him.
Talarico also explained that the plan was to transfer the call from Rose's Sudbury phone number to the Barrie command centre. Talarico said she had not called the service provider and did not know who was assigned to do that.
She said she was in the process of trying to do that around 6 a.m. that day. She and Thornton had paused their conversations so that the switchover could take place.
Some moments later, Rose, who was relieved, was walking toward his vehicle when his cellphone rang. It was Thornton. He was trying to call out, but his number was still locked in on the Sudbury police cell phone. Rose took the phone into the Barrie command centre and handed it to Talarico, the Barrie negotiator.
Talarico said it became apparent that the plan to switch the phone line over to the Barrie Police phone line had not happened as she hoped.
She took the Sudbury phone from Rose and continued the conversation with Thornton. It was 6:17 a.m.
At a point just before 7 a.m. the phone connection was failing. Talarico said police were unsure if the failing connection was due to Rose's cellphone battery dying or whether Thornton's cordless phone was the issue.
Talarico said it was frustrating.
"We had conversations for a long time, for an hour or more. So for him (Thornton) not to hear me all of a sudden was very confusing and frustrating to me. In my mind, I thought that if I could get him on our technology -- on our phone kit -- that some of those issues would be cleared up," Talarico testified.
With the phone service failing Talarico reminded Thornton that he should make himself another cup of coffee while she switched to another phone. Thornton sounded agreeable since he had earlier mentioned the idea of having a coffee break.
"You promise we are going to talk again?" Talarico asked Thornton.
"Yeah," he said.
She continued and received additional assurances from Thornton he would call her right back.
It did not happen. Talarico made numerous calls to Thornton's phone for more than two hours, without success.
The inquest was told that officers near the house could not hear the home phone ringing that morning.
Talarico said the next course of action was to deploy a "throw-phone". That's a dedicated landline phone contained in a robust little box that was set on the front porch of the house. This was done at 10:42 a.m. Talarico said it had a very loud ringer that could be heard through a door or window.
For more than an hour, Barrie Police service called the throw-phone hoping it would be picked up. It did not happen.
It was at 12:48 p.m. that tactical officers breached the home, looking for Thornton. He would be found in a bedroom, deceased, with what appeared to be a fatal gunshot wound to the head. The 20-gauge shotgun was found near the body.
The inquest continues today.
An inquest in Ontario is mandatory whenever a person dies after an interaction with police.
The role of an inquest is to determine how a deceased person came to his death, when the death occurred, where it occurred, how it occurred (medical cause of death) and by what means (natural causes, accident, homicide, suicide or undetermined).
An inquest jury cannot assign blame nor can it make any legal conclusions. A jury may make recommendations to prevent similar situations from happening in the future.
Len Gillis is a reporter for Sudbury.com.
