Police officers who responded to reports of a fight involving knives at a Toronto apartment building had time to see that neither Regis Korchinski-Paquet nor her family were a threat once they arrived at the scene, her brother told a coroner’s inquest Wednesday.Reece Korchinski previously testified that the six police officers called to the family’s west-end home in the late afternoon of May 27, 2020, treated his sister like a suspect and took an “aggressive” tone toward her.Under questioning from a lawyer representing the police union Wednesday, Korchinski said that while he understood that police had received information about a fight and knives and some injuries, the officers had the opportunity to assess the situation directly.“Regis talked to the officers that wanted to talk to her and my mom talked to the officer that wanted to talk to them. I allowed them to search me. We complied with what they wanted,” he said.The officers would have been able to see “that none of us were a risk or none of us were dangerous, especially towards them,” he said.They would have seen that the dispute was over by the time they arrived and that the knives were nowhere to be found, he said, adding police should have let his sister go into the apartment alone instead of going in with her, especially since she didn’t want them in the home.The lawyer, Peter Ketcheson, noted that Korchinski had told 911 that the knives were in the apartment.“So your position is that after you were attacked with a knife to the point you called the police and retreated to a stairwell, the police should have just let your sister go in and have access to the knives in the apartment by herself,” Ketcheson asked.“It’s Regis’s house. Regis can do whatever she wants. The police had no business walking in her house,” replied Korchinski, who also lived in the apartment. “If the police never showed up that day, Regis would still be alive.”Korchinski-Paquet fell to her death from the apartment’s 24th-floor balcony while police were in the unit.Korchinski previously told the inquest that he did not see his sister in the moments leading up to her death, but saw officers “moving aggressively” toward the balcony.Two police officers who were in the apartment at the time testified that they let Korchinski-Paquet in to use the bathroom and then tried to get her to speak to a paramedic. Soon after, they said, Korchinski-Paquet moved quickly to the balcony.Related:Regis Korchinski-Paquet’s mother questions purpose of coroner’s inquestRegis Korchinski-Paquet’s mother makes new allegation against police at coroner’s inquestThe inquest has heard that she had a history of seizures from epilepsy, often followed by confusion and aggressive behaviour, and had experienced two seizures that day.Korchinski-Paquet, her brother and their mother all called 911 to report a fight that day, and each mentioned her diagnosis and seizures on the calls.One of the paramedics who attended the scene testified Wednesday that she could hear a commotion as she arrived.As she got closer to the apartment, Jessica Smitheram said she heard Korchinski-Paquet and her mother shouting at each other. Korchinski-Paquet was in the apartment and her mother was just outside in the hallway, she said.One of the officers mentioned that Korchinski-Paquet had experienced seizures earlier and was difficult to communicate with, but the paramedic didn’t make a connection between those two things, she said.“It seemed that police had not yet developed a rapport or communication” with Korchinski-Paquet, and Smitheram thought she was being asked to help de-escalate the situation, since people often respond differently to paramedics than to police, she said.She went in and saw Korchinski-Paquet pacing while yelling into the phone, possibly talking to her father, the paramedic said. Korchinski-Paquet’s mother was in the living room, she said. The paramedic recalled seeing one officer inside the unit.Smitheram said she introduced herself to Korchinski-Paquet, who was still on the phone, and asked if there was anything she could do to help. “She did not acknowledge me at all,” she said.Soon after, police told them all to leave the apartment, she said. From her position in the hallway, she could see Korchinski-Paquet move what appeared to be an air conditioner and go onto the balcony, then step up onto something, she said.When she heard an officer mention that Korchinski-Paquet was trying to get to the balcony next door, Smitheram said she and her partner decided to head down to the outside of the building. When they got to the front of the building, they found her on the ground without vital signs, she said.Overall, Smitheram had just over a minute of involvement with Korchinski-Paquet, she said.On Tuesday, Korchinski-Paquet’s mother told the inquest that she called 911 hoping that police would take her daughter to Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.Claudette Beals said she now feels police should not be involved in incidents involving people experiencing a crisis.