B.C. coroner’s inquest into police shooting death of autistic teen hears 911 call recording

An autistic teenager shot dead by police near his Surrey high school calmly and politely told a 911 call taker that he was depressed, suicidal and had a gun, then abruptly ended the call with a loud expletive as someone approached him.

A coroner’s inquest into the death of Chase De Balinhard, 15, heard a recording on Tuesday of the 18-minute 911 call the boy made on the afternoon of Feb. 9, 2025.

It also heard recordings of police radio transmissions as eight to 10 officers armed with rifles chased the teen in and around the schoolyard and adjacent tennis courts. They followed him to a shipping container next to the lawn bowling centre where he was approached by officers before going on the run again into a wooded area.

Officers in pursuit reported he was pointing the gun at his head and at officers and waving it in the air. At one point he entered a townhouse complex.

Later an officer is heard saying: “He’s making his way out to the road. He can’t go back into the residences.”

The chase continued with officers eventually following Chase out to the street, to the corner of 185th Street and 70th Avenue.

Chase was shot with a single bullet to the upper chest.

The inquest was called to possibly make recommendations to prevent a repeat.

On the 911 call, Chase tells the call taker that “he can’t take it anymore” and that he’s going to kill himself. He said he’s been depressed for two years and has in the past cut himself with a pocket knife.

In a calm, polite voice with an equally calm call taker, Chase told 911 that he was sitting on a bench near the soccer field at Clayton Heights Secondary School. When asked if he has his pocket knife with him, he says: “No, but I have a gun.”

He said he had unlocked a drawer where his father kept the gun. It was later identified as a pellet gun.

Earlier, he told the call taker that he was autistic and had no friends because “they just ignore me” or “they just annoy me.”

Seconds before the call ended, the call taker had asked him what he thought of police and he says “to be honest, I don’t think I trust any police.”

Asked if he had thought about what he would do if the police approached him, he says: “I don’t know, sir.”

When the call taker presses him further, to ask if he would harm them or just does not trust them, he replies: “Both.”

He stops answering questions and says “what?” to someone. Seconds later he yells an expletive and doesn’t respond to the call taker’s questions about whom he’s talking to or if he’s still on the line.

The call taker testified responding officers would see comments he typed into his computer during the call come up on their computers.

Monique Ross, a retired piano teacher, was out walking her dog when she came face-to-face with Chase, with about three metres between them. She said Chase was holding a handgun near his waist and he seemed to be looking around.