Kachkar to be detained at Whitby psychiatric hospital
Posted April 29, 2013 7:58 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO – The man found criminally not responsible for killing Sgt. Ryan Russell is going to a mental health facility and could be out in public from time to time.
Richard Kachkar, 46, will be detained at the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby, Ont.
He was found not criminally responsible last month in the snowplow death of Toronto police Sgt. Ryan Russell.
Kachkar will be allowed to walk the grounds of the hospital escorted by staff.
He will be allowed out into the community of Whitby, also supervised by staff, as long as the head of the hospital approves it.
Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack said the ruling is like a punch in the stomach for the family.
“For somebody’s been through this process to be re-victimized again, it’s insulting,” McCormack said.
In a statement, Russell’s widow, Christine Russell, said she wanted Kachkar to be sent to a maximum secure facility like Oak Ridges.
She also said it was “completely unacceptable” and a “slap in the face” to her dead husband and her family that he be allowed into the community at the hospital’s discretion.
“We are urging the government to appeal this regrettable decision,” she said in the statement.
Kachkar’s mental state will be reviewed every 12 months with the goal being to successfully rehabilitate him so he can eventually be released. He will also be subject to random drug testing.
