Two Hamilton police officers who shot and killed Erixon Kabera last November won’t be criminally charged, says the Special Investigations Unit (SIU).
On Nov. 9, two officers shot as many as 24 bullets at Kabera in his apartment building hallway before he collapsed, Ontario’s police watchdog said in its report released Friday. He had been holding a replica handgun, which officers mistook for a real firearm.
Kabera, a 43-year-old father of three, was taken to the Hamilton General Hospital with eight gunshot wounds, including some in his back, and pronounced dead in the early hours of Nov. 10.
“On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that either subject official committed a criminal offence in connection with the complainant’s death,” said SIU director Joseph Martino in the report.
Family members, friends and members of the Rwandan community in Canada, of which Kabera was part, have been calling for answers from police and the SIU since his death.
Kabera’s family is “disappointed with the findings of the investigation,” they said in a statement Friday.
“Erixon was loved by many and is deeply missed by his family, friends, and his community both in Canada and in Rwanda,” said the statement, released through the law firm representing them, Falconers LLP.
The statement said the family is now “considering their legal options.”
The Hamilton Police Service said in a statement late Friday morning it recognizes “the profound impact this incident has had on Erixon’s family, the broader community and our members.”
“For now, our Service remains committed to meeting with Erixon’s family and Rwandan community leaders to find a path forward whenever the community is ready,” HPS said in the statement.
One of the two officers involved declined to be interviewed by the SIU, as is her legal right, but did release her notes, Martino noted. The other officer was interviewed, but didn’t release his notes. The SIU also interviewed several witnesses, reviewed 911 calls, police radio recordings, forensic and physical evidence and a coroner’s report.
According to the SIU report, police were called at about 4:30 p.m. Nov. 9 to the fifth floor of a Main Street W. apartment building. A resident had reported that a man had been knocking on their door and appeared to be holding a handgun.
“He would proceed to enter and exit his apartment several times, approaching the door to the [resident’s] apartment … to knock on the door, turn the door handle, and asked to be let in,” said the report.
The report does not name Kabera, but rather refers to him as “the complainant.”
When the two officers arrived, they found the man, Kabera, in the hallway. They called out to him as he entered his apartment and locked the door, but then came out again.
“The complainant was holding what appeared to be a handgun in his right hand at waist level, pointed at the floor,” said the report. “The object in the complainant’s possession was not an actually firearm, although it did give the appearance of being a genuine semi-automatic pistol.”
He raised the replica gun in the officers’ direction and walked toward them, said the report.
“He was immediately met with gunfire from the officers,” said the SIU.
The officers shot multiple rounds as they retreated, but the bullets “had no effect on the complainant who continued to advance on the officers,” the report said. One of the officers used a Taser on him as well.
Then the other officer fired seven or eight more shots, and Kabera collapsed and landed on his back. Police performed first aid on him before paramedics arrived.
One of the officers was bleeding after being wounded in the back of his head. He had mistakenly thought Kabera had fired that shot, but it actually came from the other officer.
“An honest but mistaken belief in the highly charged atmosphere that prevailed,” Martino said.
The initial statement on Nov. 10 from the SIU had said there was an exchange of gunfire between a man and police — but the next day, the SIU issued another statement clarifying that, based on “further investigation,” it did “not appear that the man discharged a firearm,” but rather two police officers did.
Martino determined the officers believed they had to fire their weapons at Kabera to protect themselves and that he was holding a gun.
“A further retreat or withdrawal might have been available to the officers, but neither was viable given the speed at which events unfolded and the presence of fifth-floor residents, whose safety would have been imperiled,” the director wrote.
Kabera’s death prompted outcry from his family, friends, members of the Black community in Hamilton and beyond.
He was the oldest of five siblings and a father of three teenage children.
His brother Parfait Karekezi previously said Kabera was “everything” to him.
“Erixon was not only my brother, he was my friend. He was my role model. He was my mentor,” he previously told CBC Hamilton.
He said Kabera was his “confidant,” and someone “who had all my secrets.”
Since Nov. 10, Karekezi and other members of Kabera’s family and community have been calling for transparency around what happened that night and accountability for his death.
On its website, the SIU says it aims to complete investigations within 120 days, but it took more than 200 for Kabera’s report to come out.
“In some cases, including death cases, investigators may need to wait for outside experts and agencies to complete reports such as toxicology and pathology reports,” a spokesperson with the SIU told CBC Hamilton previously.
“We understand how difficult waiting can be for persons involved in our investigations, including the families of those who have been seriously injured or who have died.”
In Friday’s SIU report, the police watchdog said Kabera’s postmortem examination was received from the Coroner’s Office on May 12.
Yves Ikobe, another brother of Kabera’s, told CBC previously his brother had “multiple” gunshot wounds and broken bones. He also said there were at least six or seven bullets that hit the wall, from what he saw in Kabera’s apartment.
“They killed him like a dog,” he said.
Ikobe was one of the around 400 people who gathered outside of Hamilton’s City Hall in the days after Kabera’s death to mourn him.
“He was a very kind soul,” Ikobe told the crowd that night.
