The Abdirahman Abdi inquest is being livestreamed during weekdays here.
When the Ottawa Police Service’s (OPS) communications centre began describing the Abdirahman Abdi incident to officers on July 24, 2016, it was termed a disturbance — a man pushing other people in a coffee shop.
Over the next few minutes, more details were shared: allegations of assault, including groping, and a man who was unarmed but had potential mental health issues.
When former OPS patrol officer David Weir pulled up to the scene, he saw people outside with “looks of concern” and realized, as he recently told an ongoing coroner’s inquest into Abdi’s death: “This is actually a big disturbance.”
Weir spoke to the coffee shop manager, who said Abdi had taken a swing at him and assaulted women.
“Nobody [was] coming out to tell me, ‘Wait, wait, wait! He has mental health issues.'”
When Weir arrived, Darren Courtney, a psychiatrist who happened to be in the area that day, was speaking to Abdi.
On his 911 call, Courtney can be heard talking calmly to the 38-year-old Somali Canadian, asking Abdi for his name and inquiring whether he’s upset. Abdi sounds distressed and is rambling.
Courtney, having just witnessed Abdi grabbing a woman outside, can also be heard steering someone away from Abdi.
“He’s unstable,” Courtney tells the person.
Weir and Courtney did not say anything to each other. Weir’s first words to Abdi were a command to put his hands on a window, Courtney recalled during his own inquest testimony. Abdi was not physically or verbally threatening Weir at that moment, Courtney added.
Weir said Abdi first complied with his order, but then fixed his gaze on him and said “no” when told to put both hands behind his back so Weir could handcuff him.
“He’s exhibiting signs of somebody who’s in a crisis — whether it’s mental health, whether it’s drugs, whether it’s alcohol, whether it’s a combination of all three, I don’t know,” Weir said.
“But based on what I’ve been [hearing] and what I’ve been told … this guy is on a tear. He needs to be arrested.”
‘Nothing wrong with the route I took’
Over the next couple of minutes Abdi fled, placed obstacles between himself and Weir, held up a construction pad Weir was afraid Abdi was going to “brain” him with, and was cornered by Weir and fellow officer Daniel Montsion in front of his apartment building, where he was taken to the ground.
In the resulting struggle, Montsion punched Abdi in the head several times. Abdi lost consciousness, went limp and died in hospital the next day, sparking a criminal trial that saw Montsion acquitted of manslaughter and a lawsuit the Abdi family settled with Ottawa police in 2020.
Ontario’s police watchdog cleared Weir and he was never disciplined internally by OPS.
The coroner’s inquest, now in its third week, is not about assigning any legal blame. It’s a fact-finding process asking a jury of five people to hear testimony and recommend ways to prevent deaths like Abdi’s in the future.
But inquest lawyers have repeatedly returned to the initial moments between Weir and Abdi to ask whether a more trauma-informed approach could have been taken.
Weir has told the inquest he considered Abdi an imminent threat to others and said there wasn’t time to de-escalate the situation.
“There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with the route I took,” Weir said.
But some inquest participants have questioned whether Weir approached the scene in a way that, as Abdi family lawyer Lawrence Greenspon put it, was “contrary to the favourable resolution of the crisis.”
‘Not there to armchair quarterback’
Abdi struggled with his mental health over the first six months of 2016 and was known to Ottawa police and its mental health unit.
But his name and history were not known to Weir at the time of the call on July 24, 2016. In fact, only during the inquest did the public hear Abdi likely suffered from schizophrenia.
“If I knew who he was, where he lived and where he was going, that’s a different ball game,” Weir said.
The mental health unit was not part of the response to the call. Even if it had been, “by the time it did get to their queue … this is all done … this call is finished,” Weir said, citing the speed with which things escalated.
Weir arrived outside the coffee shop at 08:43 a.m., according to an agreed statement of facts. About five minutes minutes later, Weir and Montsion had Abdi in custody and called paramedics.
“We’re not there to armchair quarterback the officers’ decisions, operationally, in [the] moment,” Sgt. Dodd Tapp, who leads the OPS’s mental health unit, has told the inquest.
But at various points in the inquest, lawyers with an eye toward preventing deaths like Abdi’s have done just that.
Abdi ‘would have been frightened’
Wednesday’s first inquest witness was Dr. Gary Chaimowitz, a psychiatrist called to testify as an expert. He didn’t treat Abdi but reviewed his case for the inquest.
“I appreciate officers need to make decisions in the moment,” he said at one point when being cross-examined about police tactics by Greenspon. “It’s not always easy.”
Under questioning by inquest lawyer Maria Stevens, Chaimowitz gave an idea of what Abdi might have been going through as a person with a major mental disorder in the moments before he was taken into custody.
“He would have been frightened and he would have not actually understood what was happening,” Chaimowitz said, citing evidence that Abdi was hearing voices and seeing things in previous months.
“And if you were scared, the sort of typical response perhaps to somebody who’s … not behaving socially that a police officer might use, which is to raise [their] voice to get attention … for compliance or adherence … is unlikely to work with somebody with acute psychosis.”
They are also going to get more concerned about being persecuted, exacerbating their response “to what they may perceive to be a threat,” Chaimowitz added.
Abdi fled from Weir, who then tried to subdue Abdi with pepper spray and a baton, with no success, leading to the final altercation in front of the apartment building.
Stevens asked Chaimowitz what kind of approach would prevent an escalation. He suggested trying to understand the person, reducing their paranoia, not getting too close and using a soft voice.
“Essentially what you’re trying to do is present yourself not as an enemy,” Chaimowitz said.
Earlier in the inquest, Stevens asked Weir about potential de-escalation steps he might have taken, like putting time and distance between himself and Abdi.
“Letting someone get away is not a tactic,” he said. Weir didn’t ask Abdi his name because he didn’t need to, he said at another point of his testimony.
“There’s no requirement for me to come up to him and give him my life story…. I assessed that he needed to be handcuffed immediately. That was my professional opinion.”
Police, college teach de-escalation
Wednesday’s next witness was Peter Rampat, the provincial co-ordinator of the officer safety program at the Ontario Police College, where Weir received basic constable training in 2002.
De-escalation training has always been part of police training but has evolved and improved since that time — more focused now on “slowing things down,” Rampat said.
Greenspon asked Rampat about a situation where an officer arrives at a scene involving a person who has mental health issues and immediately makes commands, with “no words of de-escalation.”
Best practice calls for the officer to try to forge some kind of connection with the person “if that is the most reasonable approach in that moment,” Rampat said, noting the officer must consider any danger the person poses to the public.
Taking a trauma-informed approach “depends on the circumstances,” he said later.
WATCH / The death of Abdirahman Abdi: Here’s what you need to know:
WARNING: This video contains graphic content | Eight years after Abdirahman Abdi died following a violent struggle with Ottawa police, a coroner’s inquest is bringing the event back into the spotlight. Here’s what you need to know.
Under cross-examination by Solomon Friedman, Weir’s lawyer, Rampat agreed officers don’t have to wait to be assaulted before using force, and that many use-of-force actions are preventative in nature.
Ottawa police also offer optional crisis intervention training, which talks about de-escalation too, Tapp from the mental health unit told the inquest.
Stevens asked Weir about any training he received on how to communicate with a person he’s trying to arrest who may have mental health issues.
There’s no requirement for me to come up to him and give him my life story…. I assessed that he needed to be handcuffed immediately. That was my professional opinion.– Former Ottawa police constable David Weir
“Be clear and concise,” Weir replied. “Use your options. But it went from zero to 100 in one second…. I had no opportunity to communicate with [Abdi] other than to give him directives.”
Anita Szigeti, a lawyer for the Empowerment Council, a group advocating for people living with mental illness, asked Weir if he’d ever been taught that people in crisis will often not respond to shouted commands.
Weir said he was not taught that.
“From beginning to tragic end,” Szigeti asked at another point, “your goal [was] to make a criminal arrest of Mr. Abdi?”
“That’s it,” Weir replied. “My goal [was] to put him in custody.”
After years of being on long-term medical leave related to the trauma resulting from his involvement in the Abdi call, Weir left the Ottawa Police Service earlier this year. He never returned to active service after 2016.
The inquest continues on Thursday.