REGINA — The third day of the coroner’s inquest into the death of Kalin Dean Holonics saw the continuation of testimony concerning the issue of illegal drug use in the Regina Provincial Correctional Centre. Holonics died in cells at the centre on July 9, 2020.
The jury heard from Darrell Obrich, the director of the Regina Provincial Correction Centre. He’s been in that position for 18 months of his 37 years with Corrections, and faced many questions about what measures could be taken to improve detection and deter entry of illegal drugs coming into the facility.
One question posed over the previous two days of the inquest was whether or not an increased presence of drug detecting dogs would be beneficial. Olbrich was not convinced that having a resident drug dog would not work, pointing to his previous career as a corrections officer.
“When I first started in Corrections, we were concerned with marijuana,” Olbrich said. “Now with fentanyl, looking for something the head of a pin. It’s very hard to find.”
Coroner’s Counsel Robin Ritter asked Olbrich about the number of overdoses in the RPCC during his time as a director. Olbrich replied he knew of three overdose deaths, but many times when an overdose did not result in death. He pointed to the prevalence of drugs in the facility, noting there are periods of time where substances simply aren’t in the facility. However, when drugs do make their way inside prison walls, he said “…we can deal with two or three a week. It’s hard for me to give you a number.”
Perhaps the most contentious issue surrounding the entire inquest was that of the number of times guards performed checks during the night shift. Provincial policy states hourly checks overnight, while at the time Holonics was serving at RPCC, checks were only done three times after midnight. When asked by Ritter about how thorough those checks were the night Holonics died, Olbrich - who noted he had once been a night shift guard - said he found no fault.
“When you regularly work a night shift and you’re used to looking into a cell, you’re used to looking for visual clues,” Olbrich said. “You get fairly efficient at it.”
The lawyer representing Holonics’ family - Nicholas Brown - posed the question of there being a culture of complacency to Olbrich, in light of the CCTV video of corrections officer Giselher Riemer appearing to take a “glance” into cells during three checks in the early morning of July 9, 2020. Olbrich disagreed with the checks being called “bare minimum,” explaining that shining a flashlight into a cell for 20-30 seconds would run the risk of waking the inmate. Olbrich reiterated what correction officers had already stated during the inquest, that they are looking for skin and saw no signs of medical distress.
Brown also questioned the timeline of when provincial policy dictated hourly checks at night. He reminded Olbrich that the policy had changed the previous month, but had not been implemented at RPCC until after Holonics was discovered deceased in his cell. As Olbrich is the director at the facility, Brown stated that it was his role to ensure the facility was compliant, and that he “failed in that role”
“I failed to ensure the revision was made to our policy,” Olbrich clarified.
The main purpose of the inquest is to discover ways to prevent similar events from occurring again in jails, and one suggestion Olbrich offered was a 25-foot perimeter wall around the 160 acres RPCC is on.
Candice Grant, representing Corrections, asked Olbrich about how effective such a structure would be against drones that could possibly be used to drop contraband.
“We’ve dealt with drones over the last few years,” Olbrich said, noting a fence would not stop them.
The six-man jury is expected to release its findings this afternoon.
