Premier wants SIU report into Andrew Loku’s death to be released publicly

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne wants the Special Investigations Unit’s (SIU) report into the police shooting of Andrew Loku death to be released publicly.

Wynne has promised to meet with Black Lives Matter protesters to discuss their allegations of systemic racism and lack of police transparency. The group staged a vigil for Andrew Loku outside of the premier’s home.

Loku was shot and killed by Toronto police last July. No charges were laid after the SIU ruled the officers’ actions were justified after Loku approached them armed with a hammer.

“What we need to do is to sort out how to make the information that’s in the SIU report public. […] Where there are privacy considerations, where there are issues that need to be considered, I need to know what those are, we need to understand what those are,” Wynne told reporters on Thursday.

But she stressed she wants the information that is in the SIU report to be in the “public realm.”

“So, it’s not a matter of whether, it’s a matter of how we do that and that’s the work that we’re doing now,” Wynne said.

The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services is consulting on a number of policing matters including police oversight and reviewing the roles of the SIU.

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Wynne’s announcement comes as Toronto Mayor John Tory is planning to hold a public meeting on “equality issues” with community leaders, including Black Lives Matter Toronto. A date for the meeting has yet to be set.

Black Lives Matter said its members plan on attending the meeting, pending more information on its format and focus. The group has repeatedly asked Tory for a meeting; however, up until now the mayor had only offered to meet with them behind closed doors.

Wynne and Tory held their usual monthly meeting on Thursday, discussing issues like transit, infrastructure, but the issues surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement took priority.

“I certainly feel it’s my obligation to make sure that opportunity to have input on these issues – to give advice [and] to help us find solutions – rests with a very broad segment of the community, including people who are not black, for example,” Tory told reporters after the meeting.

Tory is also planning to have a private meeting at his office on Saturday morning, to plan for the public one. The exact time of this meeting has not been confirmed.

Andray Domise, 35, who lost to the late Rob Ford in Ward 2 Etobicoke North in the 2014 municipal election, is expected to be at his private meeting, along with 15-20 other people. However, members of Black Lives Matter won’t be in attendance.

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The review of the role of the SIU coincides with the ongoing protests by Black Lives Matter who are demanding the names of the officers involved in Loku’s shooting.

However, on Thursday, Wynne could not say whether the officer’s name will be redacted in the report, or when the report will be released.

The province’s attorney general has previously said the report has to wait for the review, which Wynne said is broader and looks into a number of oversight bodies, to be done first.

Wynne said that is not necessarily the case.

“This piece of how do we make this information [in the SIU report] public will move expeditiously in the context of these other things. But I don’t think it has to be sequential in every case,” she said.

“I know that there’s some urgency around this. We are in the process of working on appointing someone to conduct the review.”

With files from Cynthia Mulligan and Momin Qureshi