A Victoria police officer held a dying 15-year-old boy in his arms, trying to comfort him and stem the blood pouring from his chest, a B.C. Supreme Court trial heard Tuesday.
Const. Ian Hynes testified on the second day of Cory Daniel Barry’s second-degree murder trial in the death of Justin Wendland, a student at Victoria High School.
The Crown alleges Barry stabbed the teenager twice in the chest, then ran to the Victoria police station with his tan-coloured pit bull.
Barry, 41, who wiped away tears during the police officer’s testimony, has pleaded not guilty.
Hynes told the court he was working with Const. Justin Munro at 8:05 p.m. on June 3, 2010, when they received a report about a fight outside the Times Colonist building on Douglas Street.
When they arrived, Hynes saw about 15 to 20 people at the bus stop. He could see people helping someone on the ground.
“I got down on the ground with him,” Hynes said. “Someone mentioned he’d been stabbed. I told the B.C. Ambulance paramedics to hurry up and get there.”
The teenager was flat on his back, Hynes recalled. His eyes were open and darting. His mouth was moving but he was mute. He was turning grey, Hynes said.
“I don’t know if he knew I was there. His eyes were moving all over the place. He seemed in distress.”
Hynes rolled Wendland onto his left side and almost immediately noticed dark blood appearing on the sidewalk. “I pinned my knee into his back and yelled at Justin [Munro] to get first aid. I told [the teenager] he was going to be OK.”
Hynes applied pressure to the wounds, first with a sweater someone gave him, then with a pad from a first-aid kit.
“My left arm was cradling his head, and I started telling him he was going to be OK. I asked him ‘;Who did this to you?’ ”
But the boy’s eyes became more fixed, and he became less responsive, Hynes said. “His mouth was still open, but he was not trying to answer my question. He seemed to be gradually zoning out.”
Hynes accompanied Wendland in the ambulance to Royal Jubilee Hospital where doctors were waiting. Wendland was pronounced dead at 8:40 p.m.
Munro testified that, after assisting with first aid, he became concerned with safety at the scene.
“We didn’t even know what happened,” he said.
Munro called out to the group milling around the busy bus stop and asked them to stay in case they were needed as witnesses. He said he also asked them not to talk to one another.
