MANDEL
Ryan Russell's widow fears husband's killer on 'fast track to
freedom'
First posted: Friday, June 12, 2015
10:00 PM EDT | Updated: Saturday, June 13, 2015 09:48 AM EDT
Ryan
Russell's son, who was just a baby when he was killed, laying flowers at the
parkette named for the slain police officer at Avenue Rd. and Dupont Rd. on
June 12, 2015. (Michele Mandel/Toronto Sun)
WHITBY - Just two years
after being found not criminally responsible for running down Sgt. Ryan Russell
with a snowplow, Richard Kachkar wants to be able to leave his psychiatric
hospital on unescorted passes into the community.
It’s just as she always feared.
“He’s on the fast track to freedom,” sighed Russell’s widow Christine.
Lawyer Paul Copeland told the
Ontario Review Board that Kachkar has been a model patient who’s shown no
further psychotic symptoms since the “index offence” — the sanitized ORB
terminology for the horrible death of a young police sergeant in the line of
duty.
He’s taking his anti-psychotic
medication, he’s remorseful, he’s anxious to have gainful employment and more
exercise, his lawyer said, while Kachkar sat silently beside him, his eyes cast
down as always.
Russell listened to it all with a
mounting frustration that soon turned to simmering anger.
Copeland told the ORB that the young
father’s death that snowy morning was a “tragic accident” as Kachkar panicked
and attempted to flee — not a targetted slaying.
“Disgusting,” she murmured to her
father as she listened to the lawyer try to sanitize what Kachkar did to her
husband.
“This is insulting and certainly not
true,” she said later in an exclusive interview. “Ryan’s death was clearly a
murder. Digesting the NCR verdict and subsequent hearings has been hard
enough.”
A jury, though, found otherwise.
After hearing evidence that the St. Catharines man was mentally ill on Jan. 12,
2011 when he fled a homeless shelter in his bare feet, stole an idling plow and
proceeded to go on a violent joyride through midtown Toronto, they found
Kachkar not criminally responsible.
Kachkar has been at Ontario Shores
Centre for Mental Health Sciences ever since. The ORB must review his case
every year until it determines he no longer poses a risk to society and can be
released. Last year, they refused his request to transfer into the general
population where most patients are allowed to roam freely around the facility
and the grounds without direct supervision.
At this year’s review, Dr. Zohar
Waisman said Kachkar is now ready to move out of medium security and have unescorted
access to hospital grounds. His supervised visits into the community should
also continue — he’s already had more than 50 trips to local coffee shops,
malls and restaurants with other patients.
But the psychiatrist said it’s too
soon to allow him out on his own. Both for his safety and our own.
Like any chronic sickness, Kachkar
continues to suffer from mental illness and there’s always a risk of
recurrence, the doctor warned. Still “fragile,” he could suffer another
psychotic episode if he’s exposed to stress, such as being confronted by angry
members of the public who recognize him. Waisman told the hearing that a
patient called him a “cop killer” last year and some area businesses have
notified the hospital that Kachkar is not welcome.
“He’s untested,” Waisman cautioned.
“Given the details of this case, I believe we should progress slowly.”
In reply to a question from the
panel, the psychiatrist said there are no guarantees Kachkar wouldn’t “snap”
again. “I can’t predict that because he’s been in a protective setting for such
a long period of time.”
So Waisman urged baby steps so
Kachkar’s new treatment team can gauge how he deals with more freedom within
the hospital itself. Unaccompanied passes into the community are “way too
premature at this point.”
The psychiatrist sounded wise and
cautious. Too cautious, according to Kachkar’s lawyer. He urged the panel to
allow his client to venture into the community by himself as soon as his
treatment team says he’s ready.
Out and about on his own after just
two years of psychiatric care? It’s enough to make Russell scream.
“His lawyer is downplaying the
severity of his offence and his life-threatening actions before and after,” she
insisted. “Since his arrest he has always been monitored. Increasing freedoms
without constant supervision poses a risk that cannot be predicted.”
But she may be screaming into the
wind. The ORB is expected to release its decision in about a month.