Man who killed Toronto police officer requests move at mental health facility

TORONTO – A man who killed a Toronto police officer with a snow plow is requesting to be moved to a less secure unit at the mental health facility where he is detained.

Richard Kachkar was found not criminally responsible last March for killing Sgt. Ryan Russell in 2011.

The Ontario Review Board, which decides if and how people found not criminally responsible should be detained, ordered at an initial hearing last year that Kachkar be held in a secure forensic unit at Ontario Shores mental health hospital in Whitby, Ont.

He has been detained there for about a year and at his first annual review Kachkar, through his lawyer, requested that the board order him moved to the general forensic unit.

The hospital is recommending that he be kept in the secure unit and that his conditions not change – a recommendation supported by the Crown.

The review board ruled last year that Kachkar should be allowed escorted passes into the community, which was beyond the privileges Kachkar’s lawyer requested.

The Crown appealed that decision, but Ontario’s Appeal Court dismissed it, siding with the review board in ruling that granting Kachkar escorted trips into the community posed minimal risk to the public.

Russell’s widow Christine called the board’s previous decision a “slap in the face” and is attending Kachkar’s hearing, along with her family.

NCR patients are subject to annual reviews at which board members decide whether they should get more or fewer privileges, or even be given an absolute discharge, once they are deemed to no longer pose a significant threat to public safety.