The director of the Special Investigations Unit believes Andrew Loku’s aggressive behaviour on the night he was shot dead by Toronto police was due to intoxication, not mental illness, and said police did not know the building where Loku lived and died housed people with mental health challenges.

SIU director Tony Loparco also raised serious concerns about the “improper” conduct of one Toronto police officer immediately after Loku’s death, saying his attempt to secure and view surveillance video “threatened to publicly compromise the credibility” of the SIU’s independent probe.

The revelations in the high-profile Toronto police shooting come after the Ministry of the Attorney General publicly released on Friday the SIU director’s report, a document that has always been kept secret after every investigation since the watchdog was created in 1990.

But the heavily censored document is a fraction of Loparco’s report — just nine of 34 total pages — and omits key information, including the name of the officer who killed Loku, the names of nine police witnesses, and those of 15 civilian witnesses.

The information that’s kept secret in those missing pages, critics say, is the most important part: the evidence.

“This is not a full release, this is not full transparency, this is not the full accountability that the public has been asking for,” said Margaret Parsons, executive director of the African Canadian Legal Clinic, the firm that has been retained by Loku’s family.

It is impossible to determine how Loparco arrived at his conclusions, Parsons said, without seeing what civilian witnesses had to say and to weigh that against the officers’ version of events.

The partial release of information “doesn’t come close” to giving the family justice, Parsons said.

“We’re not any more informed than we were yesterday before the report was released,” said Rodney Diverlus, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto, which had camped outside Toronto police headquarters for weeks in protest following the SIU’s decision to clear police in Loku’s death.

“Without knowing what the evidence was, and the legal reasoning of the director, it cannot be subjected to public scrutiny and doesn’t serve any valid purpose whatsoever,” said former SIU director and Crown attorney Howard Morton.

Alongside the release of the report, the government named an Ontario Court of Appeal justice to lead a review of police oversight in the province. For now, NDP deputy leader Jagmeet Singh and Progressive Conservative MPP Randy Hillier — both of whom have been vocal critics of the SIU’s secrecy in recent weeks — examined the released report’s highly censored form and condemned it.

“It’s disrespectful to the (Loku) family and it’s disrespectful of the public,” said Singh.

“It took so long to release so little,” said Hillier, who said it is “completely unacceptable” to withhold all of the witnesses’ accounts.

Queen’s Park said the deletions, which are “a result of privacy and safety constraints as well as legal requirements, include information gathered from witness interviews, and forensic and physical evidence.”

The omission of key information is due to the fact that when the SIU does an investigation, it formally advises everyone interviewed that their names and statements will be kept confidential. The information would only be released with their consent, or if required by law in a criminal court hearing or a coroner’s inquest.

But privacy experts say the province can and should do more to disclose more information about Loku’s case and all other SIU probes.

Ann Cavoukian, formerly Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner, said the civilian statements should have been made public but without any witnesses’ identifying information, as is done by British Columbia’s police oversight body. The names of the officers should be released because they are acting “in a formal public capacity.”

“We’ve heard from so many people who just want to get an understanding of what happened, and you gain a better understanding by hearing from each of the witnesses in their own words as opposed to a summary of that by the person overseeing the whole process,” she said, adding she’s “cautiously optimistic” with the released of the censored report.

Current information and privacy commissioner Brian Beamish was pleased that at least a partial version of the report was released, but reiterated his position that the names of the police officers should be published, despite the government saying they are protected under freedom of information and privacy legislation.

He said “some portions” of the witness statements could also have been released without identifying them, in compliance with privacy law.

“I understand the position of the government that formal assurances of confidentiality (to the witnesses) were made and the reluctance to retroactively change the rules of the game,” Beamish said in a statement to the Star.

“However, I continue to believe that there is a significant public interest in the release of some personal information in reports of this nature, for example, the names of subject officers. Going forward, I believe the rules need to be revised immediately so that families and the public have all the information they need, including personal information, to assess SIU investigations and findings.”

Loku, a 45-year-old father of five from South Sudan, was killed when officers were called to a Toronto apartment building at 502 Gilbert Ave. last July, after reports he was threatening a woman inside with a hammer. He was killed in the third-floor hallway of his unit in a building leased by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) to tenants with mental health challenges.

According to the SIU report, Loku was advancing on police with a hammer with it raised above his head. Loparco ruled the unnamed officer shot Loku in self-defence, and that Loku “repeatedly” ignored orders to drop the weapon.

“What you gonna do, come on, shoot me,” Loku is quoted as saying.

However, two eyewitnesses have told the Star that by the time police arrived on scene, Loku — initially agitated by an ongoing noise dispute in the building — had calmed down and no longer posed a threat.

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New information provided in Loparco’s report includes that the partner of the officer who shot Loku told the SIU that she herself was “just about to fire” at the time.

The report also reveals that the officer who shot Loku was not interviewed until July 13, more than a week after the shooting. An SIU spokesperson did not respond to an email Friday asking what caused the delay.

Loparco’s report also reveals that Loku’s blood-alcohol level was 247 mg/100 ml of blood, three times the legal limit. The director says it was likely Loku’s intoxication, and not his mental illness, that caused him to be aggressive toward police, though Loparco’s rationale for this is not included in the report released Friday.

The full report

Loparco also said there is no “no evidence” police knew of Loku’s mental health issues, because a civilian witness with the CMHA said the organization “expressly” did not advise Toronto police that the building housed people with mental health challenges because of the possible stigma.

Loku’s death and the secrecy surrounding it sparked outrage across Ontario, triggering an upcoming coroners’ inquest and the two-week Black Lives Matter Toronto protest outside Toronto police headquarters.

Against that backdrop, Premier Kathleen Wynne said the report would be released to the public. It is the first since the SIU was launched in 1990.

After every SIU probe, the agency’s director does a report detailing the decision to either lay a charge or clear an officer. That report only goes to the attorney general.

Also Friday, the government named Justice Michael Tulloch to lead a review of how police oversight is conducted in Ontario. Tulloch, the first black judge on the Ontario Court of Appeal, worked on a previous review of the SIU, and will report back with final recommendations by next March 31 in a report that the attorney general must make public.

His independent probe will examine the SIU, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director and the Ontario Civilian Police Commission.

“I am certainly aware that the issues involved are complex and will require a sense of balance and fairness,” Tulloch said in a statement to the Star.

“I am also confident that with the input of the stakeholders involved that I will be able to investigate these issues with a fresh perspective to make the necessary recommendations in order to ensure a more functional system.”

Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur said it is an important appointment, adding that Tulloch will be widely consulting with everyone from police to activists to journalists who cover policing matters.

“I have full confidence in him,” said Meilleur, noting that Tulloch’s review could lead to the retroactive release of other SIU reports and to the censored information in the Loku case.

“We have asked Justice Tulloch to prioritize making recommendations as to how information in SIU reports could be made public in the future, as well as whether past SIU reports should be made public, and the form this information would take. The government expects to receive these prioritized recommendations in the coming months,” she said.

“This review process ... will create a more transparent approach to police oversight that has the confidence of both the police and the public they serve.”

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