Ottawa cop killed outside hospital, ex-Mountie charged with 1st degree murder

Tue Dec 29, 10:33 PM

By Heather Scoffield, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - A former Mountie faces a first-degree murder charge after a police officer on a routine call was ambushed and stabbed to death outside a hospital in the bitter cold and dark.

Ottawa police said in a release Tuesday night that Kevin Gregson, 43, of Ottawa also is charged with robbery and using an imitation firearm in the commission of an offence. Police said Gregson is to appear in court on Wednesday.

Const. Ireneusz 'Eric' Czapnik, 51, died at 5:30 a.m. ET, shortly after he was attacked while sitting in his cruiser taking notes.

The father of four was described as a "jovial" officer who patrolled the city's east division, and was active in the local Polish community.

Four paramedics, some of them women, interrupted the stabbing and were able to apprehend a suspect outside the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital, in the city's west end.

"There's no rationale, there's no reason," said Ottawa police chief Vern White, recalling the painful meeting he had Tuesday with Czapnik's family and friends.

"I think someone was hell-bent on something occurring, and they ensured that it happened," White told a news conference. "And it cost a very good officer, and man and father, his life."

Czapnik (pronounced zap'-nik) joined the police force in his late 40s after a career in retail. A Polish immigrant, he moved to Canada in 1990 and eventually followed in the footsteps of his father, who was an officer in Poland for 30 years.

His wife, Anna Korutowska, tearfully described her husband as a "very, very good man, and it's so hard to lose a very, very good man."

There was no apparent connection between Czapnik and the suspect, White said.

The constable had answered a routine call to the hospital at around 4:30 a.m. ET, about three hours before the end of his shift. He was writing up some notes in his cruiser when he was taken by surprise by his attacker, White said.

The four paramedics intervened, with difficulty, when they saw the attack in progress - at considerable risk to their own safety, White said.

"They were heroic in the way they handled the situation," he said, adding that they went far beyond any expectations for paramedics.

Officers spent hours investigating the scene, a parking bay near the hospital's emergency entrance, now cordoned off by yellow police tape.

A flashlight, gun, notebook, a single glove, a knife with a 12-centimetre blade and a second knife lay drenched in a large pool of blood near a silver Honda Civic.

Lawyer Israel Gencher said he spoke with Gregson briefly by telephone earlier in the day, but declined to say what they talked about.

Gregson has been before the courts previously. He received a conditional discharge in 2007 for pulling a knife on a Mormon church official in Regina the year before.

Court heard that Gregson, who was off duty at the time, became angry and brandished a knife when a bishop refused to grant him a special card that allows members to enter Mormon temples for certain ceremonies.

"You don't know how many ways I've been taught to kill," Gregson said, according to a Crown prosecutor.

Several months later Gregson had surgery to remove cysts in his brain.

He pleaded guilty in a Regina court in April 2007 to uttering a death threat.

The last time an Ottawa police officer was slain in the line of duty was in October 1983 when Const. David Utman, 38, was shot at a shopping centre during an altercation.

"It's tough. This city, particularly in relation to police officers, has been very, very safe. We haven't lost an officer since the early 80s. Not that it would be easier. But it certainly is not something we're used to dealing with or managing," White said Tuesday morning in an interview in his office.

"My condolences go out to the family and friends of this officer. And the family of the Ottawa police service, because very quickly you become a family member in this organization, as I found out after a couple of years."

In a release Tuesday night, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan expressed sympathies to Czapnik's family.

"We were also saddened and disappointed to learn the individual arrested in Const. Czapnik's murder is a suspended member of the RCMP," Van Loan said. "The RCMP is offering assistance to the Ottawa Police Service in their investigation of this event."

Officers were taking some comfort in an outpouring of support from the community. People were sending emails and messages of condolence, as well as leaving flowers outside the police headquarters, where flags flew at half-mast.

From: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/091229/national/ottawa_police_killing