Elders watched helplessly while woman beaten to death

People in Fort Good Hope, N.W.T., say a young mother might still be alive if RCMP had responded to calls faster.

Charlotte Lafferty was beaten to death last March.

Two elders witnessed her attack from their apartments and frantically called RCMP for help.

• Scroll down for the complete audio from the Sept. 15 edition of The Trailbreaker, including the response from the RCMP's Barry Ledoux

The community has a local RCMP detachment but calls go through a dispatcher in Yellowknife.

Barthy Kotchile says he looked out his window that morning to see Lafferty being brutally beaten. He couldn't understand why his calls to the local police detachment kept going through to Yellowknife. Confused, he hung up without answering all of their questions. 

Then he waited, helpless, watching the attack through his window.

When police never showed up, he called his cousin John Cotchilly in a panic.

“He said he phoned the police but they never come, so he asked me to phone the RCMP,” Cotchilly says. “And when I did, Yellowknife answered the phone. And then they told me the police is on its way.”

But Cotchilly says the police took a long time to arrive.

“By the time that girl was already killed. I don't know why RCMP here never answered the phone. It's not right.”

Witnesses say a police officer arrived at the scene nearly an hour after the attack began, but it was too late. And the community still mourns the death of Lafferty, a mother of three.

Some people say she may have been saved if emergency calls were handled locally.

Brenda Pierrot is among them.

“It’s a big loss to us,” she says. “It affects everybody. I feel for the elders that had to see it. Maybe it wouldn't have turned out the way it did, if they responded faster.”

The elders are still getting counselling to deal with the death.

Central dispatch won’t change

Kotchile says the dispatcher asked too many difficult questions.

RCMP Sergeant Barry Ledoux says those questions are essential to the system.

“We need the people to be patient and calm to answer the questions that are being asked of them,” Ledoux says. “Once we get that information, we can move forward.”

Ledoux says the system that puts all calls to Yellowknife won't be changed anytime soon.

He says the best thing people can do when they're calling in an emergency situation is to provide as many details to police as they can.”

That can include things like your name, your telephone number, who’s involved in the situation and whether there are weapons.

Ledoux says the RCMP would like to have more members in small locations, but he says the crime statistics don’t support that.