Officer who shot Baker begins testimony

The police officer who shot Beau Baker in 2015 began testifying Tuesday at Baker’s inquest.

Baker, 20, was drunk and armed with a knife when Eric Boynton shot him outside Baker’s apartment building at 77 Brybeck Cres. in Kitchener on the night of April 2, 2015. Baker was pronounced dead in hospital.

In a 911 call just before the shooting, Baker talked about stabbing police and killing himself.

Boynton, a constable with Waterloo Regional Police at the time but now a staff sergeant, said he arrived at 77 Brybeck to see three people outside the building. He later learned one of them was Baker.

Baker had “something in his hand,” Boynton said. “It shimmered.”

He said he asked Baker what he was holding. Baker said it was a “really sharp knife” and held it up, Boynton said.

Boynton said he did not have a Taser and was not trained to use one.

“No constables on patrol at the time had a Taser,” he said.

Testimony ended for the day before Boynton was asked about the shooting. He returns to the witness stand on Wednesday.

The Special Investigations Unit cleared Boynton of any criminal wrongdoing.

A judge previously rejected a request for Boynton to remain anonymous at the inquest.

In the 911 call minutes before he was shot, Baker said he planned to stab police and harm himself.

“Just bring some (expletive) cops and take my ass down,” he said. “They better have weapons because I’m pissed.”

Reka Kadar, a child protection worker with the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) of London and Middlesex, told inquest jurors she was shocked to learn of Baker’s death.

“This was the saddest event in my CAS career of 23 years,” she said.

“It’s going to be with me for the rest of my life. He was not the one that I would have imagined having such an early death.”

Kadar was Baker’s worker for five years. He had been a Crown ward when he lived in London, Ont., and continued to get support from Kadar when he was an adult living in Kitchener.

Baker had experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.

Kadar’s last meeting with him was nine days before he died. She said he seemed to be under the influence of a substance.

She knew that Baker had previously tried to take his own life, but did not know he had suicidal thoughts in the days leading up to his death and had made 12 hospital visits in a seven-month period.

Kadar said it would help if children’s aid workers had more time with each client.

“A lot of time we are meeting with a youth and we’re in a rush because we have to go and see someone else,” she said.