SIU investigating after woman falls to death from Toronto balcony

Ontario's police watchdog says it is investigating after a 44-year-old woman fell to her death from her apartment balcony shortly after interacting with Toronto police early Monday.

The incident happened just before 2 a.m., the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said in a news release.

Toronto police officers went to an apartment on High Park Avenue in the city's west end looking for a wanted person, the SIU said. The building is the same highrise where another woman fell from a balcony during an interaction with police in 2020. 

The SIU said Tuesday that police spoke with a woman at the apartment who then tried to scale down her balcony. The woman fell and was located by officers on the ground.

She was rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead, the SIU said.

Man says woman fell from his neighbour's balcony

CBC Toronto spoke with a man on the floor Monday who said the incident happened at his apartment, and the woman didn't live in the building but was visiting him. 

The man, who only gave his first name, Anthony, said the woman answered a knock at the door, but slammed it shut when she saw it was the police. They told her they had a warrant for her arrest, Anthony said. 

He said the woman then went to his balcony and crawled to the balcony next door, which is separated only by a partition, before he let the police in to search the apartment.

Anthony said one of four officers soon spotted the woman on the balcony next door and police began asking her to come back over to his apartment. Anthony said police had told him to sit at his kitchen table during the interaction, but he could see and hear part of it through the balcony door.

"The last thing I saw was her hand trying to reach over the [balcony railing], and then she said something, and they said, 'Don't jump, don't jump,' about seven times," Anthony said. "And then all of a sudden I heard, 'cause I'm at the kitchen table, I heard a thud."

In 2020, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, 29, fell from a balcony at the building during an interaction with police. The SIU investigation cleared the officers in that case.

Investigators are asking anyone with information, video or photos related to Monday's incident to come forward.

The SIU is an independent agency that investigates the conduct of police officers in incidents that may have resulted in death, serious injury, the discharge of a firearm or allegations of sexual assault