"Lethal and Effective"

In the mind of someone sane enough, yet psychically depraved in his own very special way, murder is unacceptable, but killing someone is perfectly explicable. And there is a vast difference between the two. For, as Kevin Gregson, former Mountie, and killer/murderer of Ottawa Police Constable Eric Czapnik has it, the death of Constable Czapnik was unfortunate, but Gregson is not completely responsible.

A surveillance video from the Civic campus of the Ottawa Hospital shows Kevin Gregson being escorted inside in handcuffs. It was entered into evidence on Wednesday March 7, 2012.

The fact is, as Mr. Gregson sees it, the entire episode represented simply a failed attempt on his part to secure Constable Czapnik's service gun. All that Constable Czapnik had to do, reasonably, was to surrender his revolver to Mr. Gregson, and it would have marked mission accomplished. At that point, Mr. Gregson would have removed himself, in possession of the gun, and Constable Czapnik would have been free to return to his loving family.

But no, Constable Czapnik had to play the police officer. Which, in fact, Mr. Gregson was fully prepared for, knowing full well that no police officer willingly gives up his gun. And when Constable Czapnik reacted as Mr. Gregson knew he would, that sealed his fate. The former RCMP officer was an expert knife wielder.

He prided himself, in fact, on his expertise in handling a knife. In his hands it was far more of a deadly instrument than it would represent for anyone else.

"Eric Czapnik is dead. I killed him but I didn't murder him. I have waited two years, two months and eight days to tell you that. The policeman I killed was a good man. I killed him, but I didn't murder him."

He has exculpated himself. All he wanted, after all, was the gun. He would have taken that gun and gone home with it. And in the peace and quiet and familiarity of his home he intended to use that gun to kill himself. It was an accidental, an incidental, and unfortunate occurrence that resulted in the death of Constable Czapnik.

In reacting, the policeman "punched me in the head with his left fist. It was a good hit. He went for a quick draw, so I jumped on top of him. My knife went up and boom, boom. I didn't do it intentionally. I wasn't thinking. It was all training. It was fast, fast. That's why I'm pleading not guilty. This should be just a manslaughter charge."

"The stuff I learned (in the RCMP) was supposed to be for good, but I am lethal and effective. I wanted to die in my sweet spot on my couch, not in the snow on a sidewalk." But of course, it was perfectly logical, his plan. To procure the weapon he wanted to deliver a swift death to himself. The attempt he'd made earlier in the day failed; he just wasn't able to slit his own throat properly.

And although he had no wish to die in the snow on a sidewalk, that was the fate he designed for the policeman who had been sitting outside the the Ottawa Civic Hospital in his cruiser, writing up his notes. When Kevin Gregson appeared, demanding his gun. When three paramedics came to Constable Eric Czapnik's aid, and he stumbled into the hospital for emergency aid, trying to stem his life's blood, it was simply too late.

Eric Czapnik was killed, not murdered, by Kevin Gregson who is lethal and effective and should be charged, he claims, with manslaughter, not murder.