After Andrew Loku was shot dead by a Toronto police officer, another Toronto cop “unduly” inserted himself into the investigation by “improperly” attempting to review and download surveillance video of the shooting, jeopardizing the credibility of the Special Investigations Unit probe, the watchdog’s director wrote in his report.

The revelation comes in the release of the civilian watchdog’s director’s report into the death of Loku, the 45-year-old man killed by an unnamed Toronto police officer last July.

Though the report — the first of its kind to be released to the public — is heavily censored, its release exposes for the first time SIU director Tony Loparco’s criticisms of Toronto police conduct during the probe of the high-profile shooting, as well as and his frustration that such interference is all too common.

He cites other SIU investigations where this has occurred, but the file numbers he references as examples have been censored in the copy of the report provided the Ministry of the Attorney General Friday.

“This case is another example in which the post-incident conduct of some officers threatened to publicly compromise the credibility of the SIU’s investigation,” Loparco wrote.

In the absence of an overriding public safety concern, police should never attempt to view or download video without first getting consent of the SIU, Loparco wrote. He cites Ontario’s Police Act, which states the SIU “shall be the lead investigator in the investigation of the incident and shall have priority over any police force.”

The officer’s decision to view the recordings violates that regulation — a rule that exists to assure the community that SIU probes are truly independent, Loparco said.

Mark Pugash, spokesperson for the Toronto police, said the officer’s job was to secure the scene, and that includes evidence.

“We simply disagree,” with Loparco, he said. “In this case, it was, ‘Did the video exist? Was it recording?’ In which case they would need to download it to preserve evidence.”

Pugash said he was told that “several” SIU officials at the scene had no objections to the officer securing the video.

Loparco raised his concerns about the officer’s conduct in a letter to police Chief Mark Saunders. But the public can’t know if any action was taken, including if the officer was disciplined.

Last week, Saunders was required to submit to the Toronto police board the results of an internal review into Loku’s death, a report required after every SIU investigation and which legally “may” be made public.

But the Toronto police board is refusing to release Saunders’ report, which would reveal how the chief responded to Loparco’s concerns. The board will discuss releasing the report to the public at its next board meeting.

Pugash would say only that “Chief Saunders addressed all the issues that have arisen from this.”

During the SIU’s investigation into Loku’s death, members of the Canadian Mental Health Association — the organization that leases the Toronto apartment building where Loku lived, and where the shooting happened — brought their concerns to SIU investigators about police accessing the surveillance video.

They were especially concerned that the video had vital gaps, and did not capture the full interaction with police.

Steve Lurie, the executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association Toronto, and who has seen the video, told the Star the video cuts out right before the fatal shooting. The last image captured is of Loku holding the hammer below his waist, walking toward the officers.

Lurie also said the third-floor cameras are the only ones in the building that malfunctioned that night.

A forensic examination of the recording showed there was no evidence of anything nefarious to suggest that police edited the video, according to the SIU report.

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Nonetheless, Loparco noted those who raised concerns about the gaps had believed it had something to do with police accessing the video, a suspicion that would be avoided had they just been hands-off.

“This case is a classic example of how conduct of the type in question detracts from community confidence,” he wrote.

It’s not clear why Loparco did not highlight his concerns with police conduct when he released his decision in the Loku case in March.

Jason Gennaro, a spokesperson for the SIU, did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

In his decision on the fatal police shooting of Jermaine Carby last year, Loparco made a point of highlighting inappropriate “tampering” of the evidence by a Peel police officer, who removed a knife police said Carby was carrying from the scene.

“The removal of the knife ensures that some members of the community will harbour concerns, legitimate concerns in my view, regarding the very existence of the knife,” Loparco wrote at the time. Days later, Peel Regional Police Association president Paul Black blasted back at Loparco, saying his comments were “misleading” and created “an air of mistrust amongst our membership with the SIU.”

In his report on Loku, Loparco asked the ministry to “strongly consider amendments to the regulations governing SIU investigations to more clearly address “what is clearly a recurring problem.”

Pugash said Toronto police would support that clarification.

David Tanovich, a law professor at the University of Windsor, called the officer accessing of video “very troubling.”

“Given the apparent systemic nature of the problem, I think that the director should have recommended the chief launch an investigation into whether the officer should be charged with obstruct justice. Simply raising the issue in his reporting letter is insufficient,” he said in an email.

Tanovich added it is now even more imperative that the public be allowed to see Saunders’ own report to see “whether he included this clear misconduct by the officer in it.”

Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca

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