BURNABY, B.C. – A B.C. Mountie who was found guilty of disgraceful conduct for not getting out of his car to investigate a 2008 shooting in Mission apparently laughed when he received the call from dispatch.
Audio played on the first day of a coroner’s inquest into the death of Lisa Dudley heard Cpl. Michael White accepting a back line telephone call from a dispatcher after a neighbour reported he heard what sounded like gun shots across the street and “something” yelling. White, who was a constable at the time, was the acting watch commander the night the call came in.
LISTEN: White takes the call from the dispatcher, laughs
“Six gunshots in a row and a crash,” White said before chuckling over the phone.
The dispatcher is heard saying “yeah exactly. Don’t you love this?” while White responds “Yep. I’ll head out.”
What he didn’t know was Dudley and her boyfriend Guthrie McKay had just been shot in a targeted attack. McKay is believed to have been killed instantly, but Dudley lay paralyzed on the floor, clinging to life for four days before help arrived. She was discovered by a neighbour, but died on the way to the hospital.
White admits he was skeptical the caller had actually heard gunshots along the usually quiet stretch of semi-rural circular road at Shaw Street and Greenwood Drive, and assumed it was a vehicle crash. But, speaking to the coroner and jury, White insisted he does not believe his skepticism influenced how he responded to the call.
White says he arrived in unmarked blue crown Victoria police cruiser, assumed it was a motor vehicle crash, but found no evidence of it. He told court he drove clockwise around the Shaw Street and Greenwood Drive loop. He says he saw a deer and thought maybe someone shot at it from their rural property.
White says he met up with second officer who was in marked cruiser with alley lights on and she also did the loop and also reported seeing nothing. White filed his report and the pair were dispatched to another report of two men with a gun and stolen vehicle.
White was the primary responder on the case. He adds included it in his watch report recap of the shift but did not assign anyone to follow up.
“It’s just uncomfortable to listen to, but it’s part of the evidence now and hopefully the jury recognizes the value of that tape,” Dudley’s step-father Mark Surakka said following Whites testimony Monday. “I cringed a bit of course because it bespeaks of the inner character I would suspect.”
Surakka says he has not received an apology from White in the 10 years since his daughter’s death.
“[His testimony] was an interesting attitude,” he said. “It bordered on cavalier. The seriousness of what happened and transpired and I just think it didn’t sound real. It just sounded ‘here I’m just giving testimony and this is it and I’m indifferent.”
Erwin Adam, the man who initially called police, says he was upset when Dudley was found dying in her home days later.
The coroner’s inquest heard an audio recording of Adam’s conversation with an emergency dispatcher in which he said he’d heard six gunshots and “something yelling out”.
Adams says he initially called the non-emergency number before being transferred to the emergency line and says both call-takers did not seem “terribly interested” in his report.
He told the inquest while choking back tears that it was only after Dudley was found that he realized police had not adequately followed up on his call.
Meantime, Surakka is hoping this inquest will put the case to bed.
“I’m certainly hoping there will be some enlightenment to the authorities,” he said, adding he doesn’t want a situation like what’s being investigated to happen to anyone else. “[I] hope that the jury and it’s recommendations speak loudly to the authorities. This has been investigated at least a half a dozen times. And well, I just hope something comes of it. Recommendations are recommendations. They aren’t binding.”
The three-day inquest will culminate with jury deliberations starting either June 13 or 14 and the issuing of its recommendations at a yet-to-be-announced date.
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