'This is not the result anybody wanted': Officer who shot Andrew Loku apologizes

Almost two years after Andrew Loku was shot and killed by a Toronto police officer in his apartment hallway, his family received the apology they'd been waiting so long to hear.

"This is not the result anybody wanted, especially me. I am absolutely devastated," Const. Andrew Doyle told the coroner's inquest into Loku's death.

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"I'm sorry that this was the end result," he said, his voice breaking.

His comments came at the end of his testimony about that night after the lawyer for the Loku family, Jonathan Shime, asked the officer if he had anything he wanted to say to the family of the 45-year-old man originally from South Sudan.

Family had said they wanted to hear an apology

Two family members, Andrew Loku's sister and nephew, were not in the courtroom, but were there a day earlier and told CBC News they wanted to hear an apology.

The two could not be at the inquest Wednesday, as they were travelling back home to Saskatoon.

Doyle took the stand at the inquest Wednesday, finally lifting the veil on who fired the shots that night almost two years ago, killing Loku, a man with a history of mental illness. The shooting has been sharply criticized by some, including Black Lives Matter Toronto, who view it as an example of police bias when dealing with Black people.

Some members of Black Lives Matter Toronto were in the courtroom Wednesday, as the officer described pulling out his gun and firing two shots.

At one point, a woman cried audibly in the courtroom and wiped away tears as the officer, dressed in a navy blue suit and silver tie, described the sequence of events, mainly in a clear voice, speaking matter-of-factly.

Police training called for officers to aim for 'centre mass,' officer says

Doyle told the coroner's court he drew his gun, holding it with both hands, when Loku was around 25 feet away from him and his trainee officer, Constable Haim Queroub, who Doyle refers to as Jimmy.

Doyle had just loudly yelled out "Sir!" to Loku, who then turned towards him, revealing the hammer in his right hand.

Police radio calls had already alerted the officers a man of African descent holding a hammer was threatening to kill someone in the apartment building.

But a later radio call told them the apartment door had been closed, the person complaining inside, while the man with a hammer was out in the hallway.

Doyle says he then kept yelling, "Drop it! Drop the hammer!" down the apartment hallway.

Apartment surveillance video shown in the court shows Loku walking towards the camera, the direction where the officers were standing.

Loku looks unbalanced, ambling slowly, and appears to shrug his shoulders. An autopsy report found that he had three times the legal limit of alcohol in his system allowed for driving.

'I was afraid for my life'

"He starts advancing. He walks towards me and never stops," Doyle told the court, saying Loku put his arms up, the hammer in his right hand.

"I was afraid for my life," he told the inquest. "We're trained to stop the threat. Two rounds stops the threat. He
immediately fell to the ground. There was no need for anything else."

He fired his gun twice, aiming for "the centre mass," police terminology for the torso, according to his training. "That's the quickest way to stop the threat."

He remembers Loku falling straight down, "like a tree," seeing a large pool of blood and hearing a gurgling sound.

Doyle's voice broke as he talked about what happened later, when other officers arrived on scene to relieve him, to tell him they could take over.

'I was in a state of shock'

"I believe I was in a state of shock," he said.  "I just stood there, I literally just stood there."

Later, as Shime cross-examined Doyle, he told him the shots rang out just 21 seconds after Loku turned towards the officers.

"You spent two and a half minutes in the car not planning anything," Shime said, referring to the time the officers spent en route to the call "and you spent 21 seconds doing nothing but screaming at Mr Loku to drop the weapon."

Shime reminded Doyle he'd discussed with his junior partner how to get there and making sure they arrived safely but then asked: "What kind of discussion did you have with Jimmy on who would take the lead on dealing with a black man with a hammer?"

The comment was met with loud applause in the courtroom, quickly silenced by the coroner.

The inquest will also hear from his partner that night.