The community gathered at the home of Rodger Kotanko on Tuesday morning as his family, joined by their lawyer, disputed SIU findings and doubled down on their rationale for the lawsuit that is now in place against police.
The 70-year-old gunsmith was shot and killed during a police search warrant at his home in November, with the Special Investigations Unit clearing officers of all wrongdoings last week.
The family lawyer, Michael Smitiuch, said while the family had hoped for a better result of the investigation, no one was surprised.
While the family is upset that there are no repercussions for the officer who shot Kotanko four times, they believe the SIU findings give them better footing $23 million civil suit against the Toronto Police Services Board, five officers, including the officer who fired the fatal shots, as well as Inspector Norman Proctor, head of the Gun & Gang Task Force and Police Chief James Ramer.
Smitiuch says Toronto Police were aware of Rodger’s movements that day but picked the time when he was in his shop with a customer to make the move.
The family also has concerns regarding some of the findings in the SIU and believes they are not telling the whole story.
A letter was submitted by Rodger’s wife going over that evening, as English is not her main language and they didn’t feel comfortable doing an interview, but that was not included in the findings.
Smitiuch says they have also been able to get a bit of information out of the customer and confirmed it was indeed a customer, and that the story of what happened in the moments that led to the fatal shooting does not match up.
Smitiuch also added that the crux of the search at the Kotanko workshop to begin with, which was issued and then executed the same day, had to do with guns that had their serial numbers filed down.
Rodger’s sister Suzanne Kantor echoed this statement.
Kantor said she, someone who has no knowledge of guns, took some time during an afternoon and went to see if she could purchase a milling machine used to take off serial
numbers and found she could easily access it.
She also searched online how to use that machine to get rid of these numbers, and found multiple videos.
She said her brother is a professional gunsmith, and it should be clear that this isn’t connected back to him.
She is also upset with the wording in the report, which she also feels does not paint a true picture of the events that transpired such as the “soft knock search warrant.”
A video has been released showing a bit of this moment online.
For Rodger’s brother Jeff Kotanko, he said the findings of the SIU are an insult to Rodger’s memory and does not reflect what actually transpired.
He said they are trying to tie this up in a neat bow, but the family will not stop until justice is served.
There will be a coroner’s inquest into this case.
The family expects more information will be released as the case goes on.
Written by: Matt LeBlanc