Steve Mesic's fiancÃ©e steels herself for shooting inquest

Retracing Steve Mesic's last steps 2:00

On Monday, Sharon Dorr will sit in a courtroom and face the two police officers who shot her fiancé Steve Mesic for the first time.

She knows it will be hard. She'll have to relive the details of how the soon-to-be father and former steelworker was shot last June, just steps from his own home, not long after checking himself out of a voluntary mental health care facility at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton.

The provincial Special Investigations Unit has cleared the two officers involved — Kevin Farrell and Michael McClellan — of any criminal wrongdoing. But Dorr still has lots of questions, and she wants to hear the answers in the officer's own words and see their faces when they speak.

"I believe Steve deserves an inquiry into what happened to him," Dorr told CBC Hamilton from her Mountain home — the same home that she once shared with Mesic. "But it's still hard for his loved ones to hear it."

Dorr is one of six parties who have been granted standing in the inquest. She will be testifying alongside representatives from St. Joe's, doctors, the police service and the officers involved. The inquest will also hear from close to 20 witnesses, including a bus driver who saw Mesic wandering headlong into traffic and a 13-year-old who heard the shots that killed him that morning.

"The inquest will hear from doctors and a nurse who dealt with him at the hospital, people who saw him between then and his encounter with police, the police officers, people who heard what happened, the SIU, pathologists and experts on use of force," said Graeme Leach, counsel to the coroner. Leach was also counsel for the inquest into the 2012 death of Phonesay Chanthachack.

'If they were in the same situation again, would they do it differently?'

The inquest will plumb the circumstances surrounding Mesic's death and if deemed necessary, consider any potential recommendations to prevent similar deaths involving voluntary mental health patients leaving hospital grounds and police use of force.

Dorr says she want to know specifically what the officers did to deescalate the situation, and why they couldn't do it without drawing their guns. "I'd like to know if they were in the same situation again, would they do something differently?" she asked.

Steve Mesic was shot and killed in June 2013. An inquest into the former steelworker's death starts Monday. (Mesic family)

Both Dorr and her father Norm have been vocal about their displeasure with the process surrounding Mesic's death, and the way the SIU, police and Mayor Bob Bratina dealt with it after the fact. Norm Dorr has repeatedly called for chief Glenn De Caire's resignation, and has been a fixture at police board meetings in recent months, alongside Sharon and her 8-month-old son, Dominik.

The board denied Norm Dorr's request to talk about lapel cameras earlier this month — a move he calls discriminatory.

Sharon Dorr says she has little faith in the inquest either, but is trying to remain optimistic. "Will questions ever fully get answered? I doubt it," she said. "They're making recommendations based on the truth, or what they hear?"

"And will those recommendations actually be implemented?"

A new mother with a sense of purpose

Since Mesic's death, the police service has announced a program that would see 519 Hamilton Police Service officers trained to use conductive energy weapons (better known by the brand name Taser), and would expand the arsenal from 66 to 150 weapons. Original estimates pinned implementation costs at about $1 million. The officers who shot Mesic were not equipped with Tasers, and Dorr says she can't help but wonder if the outcome would have been different if they had been.

Dorr's testimony will kick off the inquest on Monday morning. She's hoping to humanize Mesic a little, so people understand that he was a real person with a family and not just a case, she says. She's focusing on her son to keep her going.

"When you become a mother, something changes. No matter what, you protect your child. Any pain becomes secondary to his basic needs," she said. There are moments when I feel genuine joy when I look at him, but there's always something missing.

"But he does give me a sense of purpose."

The officers who were cleared by the SIU are expected to testify at the inquest on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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