Kimmirut man was ‘terrified’ of returning to jail, inquest jury told

Jurors in the inquest into the death of Kimmirut man George Arlooktoo heard Tuesday that he was scared of returning to jail.

On the second day of a coroner’s inquest into his Feb. 9, 2019 death, juror heard testimony from his aunt Levee Arlooktoo, a close relative.

She said the morning after Arlooktoo, 28, stabbed his partner, she found him sitting on the floor of a  shack belonging to her father, chain-smoking and holding two guns.

“He was smoking and crying and said he was scared,” Levee Arlooktoo testified Tuesday during the hearing, held in the hamlet’s library.

A coroner’s inquest examines the circumstances surrounding a death and its jury makes recommendations aimed at preventing deaths in similar situations.

The Nunavut coroner’s office provided Nunatsiaq News with a Zoom link to follow the proceedings remotely.

“I fought with him to take the two guns from him,” Levee Arlooktoo testified.

She said she tried to take one of the guns away. At first, he refused to give them to her.

While she spoke to him, Arlooktoo told her he had stabbed his partner.

“He looked scared, he looked terrified,” she said.

She testified she was worried he might use the guns to harm himself.

“He kept telling me he was scared and he didn’t want to go to jail. He didn’t want to go back to jail. He didn’t want to go to jail. He kept lighting cigarettes and smoking,” Levee Arlooktoo said.

She eventually managed to get the guns away from her nephew. She then took them to her father’s home, leaving her distraught nephew there on the floor of the shack.

Arlooktoo went home, which is where the police and his aunt found him a while later.

In the past, Arlookto had told his aunt about a bad experience he had in jail.

“Something happened to him in jail.” Someone hurt him in jail, she said. “He wished to never go back. He had a bad experience in jail.”

On Monday, jurors heard a summary of the events of  Feb. 9, 2019. Arlooktoo was distraught that morning, after stabbing his partner the night before. Kimmirut RCMP officers went to Arlooktoo’s home to arrest him and “provide some mental health support to him.”

Officers eventually decided to break down the door and apprehend Arlooktoo. Almost immediately, he began stabbing himself. He was transferred to the community’s health centre, where he died of his wounds.

In her testimony Tuesday, Levee Arlooktoo, who was with the police on Feb. 9, described how Arlooktoo refused to let anyone inside the house.

RCMP officers told Arlooktoo to open the door because they wanted to take him to the health centre to talk to a mental health nurse.

But Arlooktoo refused. He felt the police officers were trying to trick him, that they would take him to the police station instead, his aunt said.