Nunavut inquest learns plane jumper “flipped” prior to his death

Julian Tologanak-Labrie’s family members, including his mother, Navalik Helen Tologanak of Cambridge Bay, his sister Kim Tologanak of Edmonton, and his father, Mark Labrie of Sorrento, British Columbia, his brother Clayton and cousin Jason Tologanak stand for a prayer April 12, prior to the start of an inquest into Tologanak-Labrie’s death in April 2009. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — A coroner’s inquest in Cambridge Bay today learned that Julian Tologanak-Labrie, while on a trip to Yellowknife, displayed serious signs of depressed behaviour that escalated into an armed stand-off with police during the last 48 hours of his life.

The inquest, before Northwest Territories chief coroner Garth Eggenberger, began today.

The hearing will attempt to answers questions related to how and why Tologanak-Labrie, a normally cheerful 20-year-old, jumped out of a small aircraft to his death near Cambridge Bay on April 15, 2009.

Tologanak-Labrie first showed signs of being disturbed April 13, 2009, when two family friends, James and Darlene Aknavigak, found the 20-year-old crying in the lobby of the Nova Hotel in Yellowknife.

But shortly after 1 a.m. on April 15, 2009, Tologanak-Labrie ended up holding a long black kitchen knife in their hotel suite, with an RCMP constable pointing a gun at him and asking him repeatedly to “drop the knife.”

In separate appearances before the inquest, Darlene and James Aknavigak described how they travelled to Yellowknife from Cambridge Bay to attend a hockey tournament in which Tologanak-Labrie was playing.

After finding Tologanak-Labrie in the lobby, James Aknavigak, a long-time friend and co-worker, decided to spend the night with the young man in his room.

The next morning Tologanak-Labrie appeared at their two-bedroom suite with his bags, ready to move in.

Later that day, the Aknavigaks told Tologanak-Labrie they were heading to bed and that he had to get off the computer. He started yelling at them and “flipped,” James Aknavigak said.

Tologanak-Labrie then took an eight-inch knife from the kitchen and stood there with the knife in his hand, Darlene Aknavigak said.

The only previous that something was wrong was the teary episode in the lobby, argument with a girl that she overheard and his depressed appearance, she said.

Const. Warren Hudym of the RCMP played recordings of the call that Darlene Aknavigak placed to police. He testified about answering the call to the Nova, where he expected to find an individual under the influence of drugs.

After arriving at the hotel room, he repeatedly told Tologanak-Labrie to drop the knife. He said he drew the gun because he feared he wouldn’t have enough time to protect himself.

“In my opinion that was not normal behaviour,” Huydm said, saying he wasn’t sure why Tologonak-Labrie, described as “solemn and expressionless,” didn’t release the knife.

After he released the knife, Hudym asked him to lie down on the floor.

After Hudym threatened that other members were on the way and might use a taser, Tologanak-Labrie complied.

Worried about his lack of response and the answers Tologanak-Labrie later gave to questions, Hudym decided to arrest him under the Mental Health Act over worries that Tologanak-Labrie might cause harm to himself or others.

Hudym’s colleague Const. Violet Pokiak said “he’s going to kill himself.”

Hudym said he wasn’t committing mischief and that he wasn’t drunk or high. “What are we going to do with him?”

During the playing of the police recordings — and even before the inquest started at 10 a.m. today — Tologanak-Labrie’s mother, Navalik Helen Tologanak, dressed in somber black and white, clutched a tissue and occasionally broke down in tears.

Tologanak was the first to give evidence.

During her testimony, daughter, Kim, sobbed, while Tologanak-Labrie’s father, Mark Labrie of Sorrento, B.C., along with his brother Clayton and cousin Jason Tologanak, fought back tears.

When Tologanak last spoke to her son at about 1 am on April 15, she said she found he was withdrawn and quiet.

The words “Hi mom” and “what are you doing” were the only sentences Tologanak first recalled.

“That’s it,” she said.

The quietness of her son was abnormal, she said, as usually he was “very full of life and happy.” It sounded like he simply wanted to hear her voice, she said.

As Tologanak described her recollection of events leading up to April 15, 2009, she sometimes unable to remember the exact sequence, but she said her son had told her that he wanted to come home from Yellowknife because he was being “picked on.”

Tologanak said she tried to change his return ticket home or get an advance on her pay cheque to buy him a new ticket.

She said contacted Paul Laserich, the manager of Adlair Aviation Ltd., who she said was “always willing to help” people from Cambridge come home in an emergency by finding them space on charter flights.

Tologanak told the inquest that before heading to Yellowknife, her son had been visiting Kugluktuk to prepare for a late-spring snowmobile race.

Tologanak-Labrie was receiving counseling in Cambridge Bay, she said, but she didn’t know what it was for or if he had seeing a counselor in Kugluktuk.

Tologanak said she told a social worker, who called from the Stanton Territorial Hospital at about 10 a.m. April 15, if they had checked her son for a concussion, or drug consumption.

The social worker assured her that her son was all right, Tologanak said.

Tologanak said she never heard from the hospital again and that no one from the hospital told her why her son had ended up there.

And when she got to the airport to meet his charter flight home, she said the only thing she heard from Adlair was that “Julian opened the door.”

The plane was late. Local RCMP members were there. But no one said anything to her until after the plane landed, Tologanak said.

She said RCMP Sgt. Charles Gauthier simply shook his head when she asked him about her son.

Even when Tologanak learned her son had jumped from the plane, she said she looked for him on the tarmac.

“I was in shock,” she told the inquest.

By 3 p.m. today, April 12, the inquest had heard from four witnesses.

Also at the inquest are six lawyers representing the coroner, the Tologanak family, the doctors, pilots and others.

The six-person jury will hear from 13 witnesses including doctors, a social worker, pilots and police.