Duly Quoted: A Member of Police Sergeant Ryan Russell’s Family

By Steve Kupferman

“Go to hell, fucker.”

—Richard Kachkar, who killed Toronto Police Sergeant Ryan Russell with a stolen snowplow in January 2011, is, as of this afternoon, not criminally responsible for his misdeed. That’s because a Toronto jury agreed with Kachkar’s defense: that he was in a psychotic state at the time of the killing, and therefore not in control of his actions. By most accounts Russell’s widow, Christine, took the news stoically, but several who were in the courtroom when the verdict was handed down report that another of Russell’s family members either yelled or quietly said the words quoted above as Kachkar was led out.