'He didn't need to be alone': Murder trial witness recalls efforts to save dying police officer

Shortly after hearing gunshots outside her Abbotsford office, Jarin Skett saw a police officer fall to the ground in the parking lot.

She ran outside and knelt down beside him. He was face-down with his hands above his head. She touched his back, her hand resting on his bulletproof vest as she searched for a sign he was breathing.

Skett grabbed his radio but struggled to use it to call for help — as she watched a pool of blood trail away from the officer's body, she realized she'd never used a police radio before. 

Within minutes, another police officer arrived. An off-duty firefighter also offered to help.

In a New Westminster courtroom on Friday, Skett cried when she was asked why she ran outside to help Const. John Davidson.

"Because he didn't need to be alone," she said.

Skett was one of several witnesses who spoke during the first week of the trial for Oscar Arfmann, the 66-year-old man accused of fatally shooting Davidson in the parking lot of an Abbotsford strip mall on Nov. 6, 2017.

Arfmann, who has sat with his arms crossed in the prisoner's box all week, has pleaded not guilty.

'It didn't add up'

Witnesses have described a scene of chaos out front of a Quiznos sandwich shop the morning of the shooting.

Abbotsford Police Department Const. Kevin Murray was working general patrol that morning.

Just before noon, a dispatcher issued an alert by police radio for all officers. Something significant was happening: three gunshots were reported to have been fired at the Aldergrove Credit Union on Mount Lehman Road. 

Murray figured it was a bank robbery gone wrong or something gang-related. At about six kilometres away, he figured he was closest to the scene. He began driving. 

On the police radio, Const. Davidson said he was less than five kilometres away.

More information began coming in: the suspect, a middle-aged man with grey hair, was said to have a long gun and his vehicle was still at the scene.

"These were some very unique, weird elements to this," Murray told court. "It didn't add up."

Davidson's last radio transmission

Davidson used his radio to say he was close to the suspect's vehicle — a Ford Mustang — and that he would be heading into the strip mall parking lot.

It's the last Murray heard from him.

Dispatch was soon reporting more shots had been fired. Murray pulled into the same parking lot less than two minutes after Davidson. He used his radio to ask Davidson for his location but got no response.

He spotted his colleague's unmarked truck. It was still running, the driver's side door was open and the red and blue lights were flashing, but Davidson was not inside.

Murray said he was immediately concerned for Davidson's safety. As he left his vehicle, he also wondered whether he was going to be shot. 

He walked toward the other side of the parking lot where he heard a "chaotic" commotion. Stepping around an SUV, he saw Davidson on the ground and a woman leaning over him trying to use his radio.

"He was flat on his stomach, hands above his head, and the brightest red blood I have seen just coming from his head area into the parking lot," he said.

Police radio recordings were played in court throughout Murray's testimony. He can be heard saying "John Davidson's been hit, shots fired" and pleading for an ambulance to arrive quickly.

The key issue in the trial will be identification, according to Crown prosecutor Theresa landiorio; whether the Crown can prove conclusively that it was Arfmann who fired the gun that killed Davidson.

The judge-only trial is scheduled for eight weeks but is now on a two-week break. 

It will resume June 17.