Family of gunsmith killed in Toronto police raid says SIU report doesn't tell the full story
CBC
The family of a renowned gunsmith says Ontario's police watchdog isn't telling the full story in its report that clears the officer who fatally shot 70-year-old Rodger Kotanko of any wrongdoing.
"They're expecting us to believe my brother, who has been shooting all his life … is a gunsmith for better than 40 years, would reach for a gun on the bench that is unloaded, with no magazine in it … picked it up and pointed it at an officer who had a gun trained on him with his finger on the trigger," Jeffrey Kotanko said to reporters and a crowd of roughly 50 people Tuesday morning in front of his brother's home.
"He wasn't Billy the Kid. Come on — nobody in their right mind would possibly even consider doing that."
Ontario's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) released a report last week that says the officer who shot Rodger in his gunsmithing workshop did so in self-defence. Kotanko died Nov. 3.
Search warrant documents show police arrived to investigate why two guns registered to Rodger were found at a crime scene in Toronto and another in North Bay, Ont.
Surveillance video released by the family appears to show five officers arriving at the home and gunsmithing workshop and interacting with Rodger's wife, Jessie.
Trees block the view of the doorway of the workshop, so the video doesn't capture the interaction with Rodger, but what happens in those moments varies depending on who you ask.
When officers arrived at the home, the SIU's final report says, two officers wearing police vests announced they were executing a search warrant and approached the gunsmithing workshop.
The report states the workshop door was open and they asked Rodger and a customer he was with to raise their hands.
They say Rodger didn't raise his hands, and instead picked up a gun and pointed it at police, according to the SIU.
He refused to drop it and an officer shot him four times, the report says.
The whole exchange reportedly lasted between five and 10 seconds.
"The officer fired his weapon to protect himself — and possibly the other officer — from a reasonably apprehended assault," reads the SIU report.
"Importantly, the civilian eyewitness evidence was materially consistent with the police eyewitness accounts."
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