Inquest begins in Inuvik for Sylvia Panaktalok, who died in police custody

A coroner's inquest into the death of a Tukotyaktuk woman began Tuesday in Inuvik, N.W.T.

Sylvia Panaktalok died while in police custody on July 31, 2021. Officials said the inquest was held in Inuvik because finding a jury in her home community of Tuktoyaktuk would be too difficult with her large family and friends there.

The inquest is scheduled to end on Thursday. It's expected to lay out the facts surrounding Panaktalok's death, with the jury determining when and how she died. They may also issue recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future, but won't be laying blame for her death.

Panaktalok was 54 years old when she was arrested on liquor charges in Tuktoyaktuk outside of her cousin's house.

On Tuesday, the six-person coroner's jury heard from witnesses who gave their accounts of the day Panaktalok died.

According to testimony, she was picked up by two RCMP officers after 10 p.m. that night and needed to be carried into the police truck by the two officers and her cousin.

The officers brought her to the RCMP detachment, where they were seen on video surveillance dragging her up the ramp from the garage into the building. At one point, she collapses and one of the officers goes inside and brings out a sleeping mat.

She was rolled onto the mat and dragged up the ramp into the detachment. As she laid on the floor, officers took her shoes and removed string from the waistband of her sweat pants.

Panaktalok was then pulled on the mat into the first cell in the hallway, where the door was closed and the officer who picked her up went on his dinner break.

The officer said that, in his three years on the job, he has never had to bring in another detainee in such a manner.

The officer said he was on his dinner break when he got the call that there was an unresponsive woman in the cells at the detachment.

Three officers tried to perform CPR on Panaktalok and called the nursing station, but the nurse told them she was not allowed to leave her post to help.

The officers then put Panaktalok on a body board and in the back of an RCMP pickup truck to bring her to the nursing station.

While one drove the truck, the other two were performing CPR, alternating chest pumps on Panaktalok.

Panaktalok was pronounced dead at the nursing station a half-hour later.

Hard-working, traditional grandmother

Witnesses who spoke Tuesday said she had just returned from a fish camp the day before and had been drinking that afternoon with her cousin. She left their house and was looking for her common-law partner who had just returned from the camp with her.

Witnesses said that night she was found passed out on the front steps of her cousin's home, where they tried to wake her up to come inside. Two witnesses say she was awake for a moment but wouldn't move from the bottom of the stairs.

Witnesses described Panaktalok as a hard-working, traditional grandmother who always had time for her family and did her best to keep them doing cultural activities like hunting and fishing.

More witnesses are scheduled to testify on Wednesday.