It was, indeed, murder.
That was the decision of the jury in the trial of former RCMP officer Kevin Gregson in Ottawa last week.
The jury found Gregson guilty of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Ottawa police Const. Eric Czapnik.
Gregson served as a constable for the RCMP in Humboldt from 2003 to 2005.
The jury's decision came down at 9 p.m. on March 13, just over nine hours after beginning deliberations.
The verdict carries with it an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Gregson, 45, was also found guilty of robbery in the armed theft of a car that took him to the Civic Hospital in Ottawa on December 29, 2009, where he found and killed Czapnik. He will serve a five-year concurrent sentence on that charge. He also has a lifetime ban on owning firearms.
Czapnik, 51, was the oldest recruit in Ottawa police history, and a father of four.
Gregson and his lawyer had argued that he had killed Czapnik, but had not murdered him; making him guilty of manslaughter, not first-degree murder. He testified that due to his training, he stabbed Czapnik in an instinctive reaction after Czapnik punched him in the face.
The Crown argued that Gregson left his house that night looking for a police officer, and that Czapnik was murdered while performing his duties as a police officer.
The intentional killing of a police officer during the course of his or her duties is automatically first-degree murder in Canada.
"The evidence speaks clearly and loudly that Mr. Gregson is inescapably guilty of the charges," said Crown Prosecutor Brian Holowka in his closing statement to the jury of eight men and four women.
The jury obviously found the prosecution's argument to be the most believable.
After the verdict was delivered to the courtroom which contained 20 members of Czapnik's Ottawa Police Service detachment, and the Czapnik family, four victim impact statements were read.
Arthur Czapnik, the son of Eric, asked for a minute of silence in honour of his father, which was observed, before he spoke to the courtoom.
Looking at Gregson, he told his father's murderer that he is studying to become a police officer like his father and grandfather. "Because of people like you, I need to be a police officer," he told Gregson directly, "to help our community put away people like you."
Czapnik's widow, Anna Korutowska, gave what has been described as possibly the most heartbreaking statement.
"There is one statement that I agree on with my husband's killer. Eric was a good man," she said.
Her five-year-old son Anthony listened with the rest of the courtroom as she spoke of losing her husband, her partner, her best friend.
"I am a strong person, but the loss of Eric was breaking me."
Justice Douglas Rutherford extended sympathy to the entire Czapnik family from the city of Ottawa.
"I hope you and your family do feel the tremendous sympathy and support that flows to you from the whole city," he was quoted as saying.
Const. Chris Getz, a close friend and co-worker of Czapnik's spoke directly to Gregson, as well.
"Your narcissistic, bloated self-image is appalling," he said. "Your unwavering lack of remorse is something I will never understand or forgive. You destroyed a family; you murdered a friend, a husband, a father, a hero. Your words ring hollow with me, the Ottawa Police family and society."
Paramedic Virginia Warner read a statement from the four paramedics who tried to save Czapnik's life that night.
All four, she said, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and one says she will never work again as a paramedic.
"As paramedics, we are trained to help people. Having to watch and feel a man die in your own hands has left an unimaginable impact," she stated.
Following the victim-impact statements, Gregson was asked if he had anything to say.
"No, your honour," was his reply.
The trial
Originally to last a month, Gregson's trial lasted just two weeks. Gregson's legal aid lawyer, Craig Fleming, chose not to cross-examine most of the prosecution witnesses, who took the stand.
There was, after all, no dispute about the basic facts of the case.
In an agreed statement of facts presented on the first day of the trial, Gregson did not deny that he stabbed Czapnik in the neck during an altercation in the hospital parking lot He also did not deny that he knew Czapnik was a police officer.
Crown witnesses, including the paramedics who pulled Gregson off a bleeding Czapnik, said Gregson stated he just wanted a gun.
"All he had to do was give me the gun," he was quoted as saying at the time.
Gregson agreed that his mission that night was to get a gun to take home and use to kill himself.
Gregson then testified that he stopped fighting the paramedics when Czapnik went into the hospital, taking the gun with him.
The Crown told the court that in December of 2009, Gregson's life was falling apart. He had been kicked out of the RCMP, ordered to pay them back $20,000 of salary and his wife had confronted him with allegations of sexual abuse against a young girl of 10.
Those allegations are being dealt with separately.
He left his house on December 29 wearing two bulletproof vests, carrying two knives, a BB gun and handcuffs - "dressed for battle" was how the Crown described him. He found Const. Czapnik in his police cruiser, writing a report, outside the emergency room at Civic hospital.
He ordered Czapnik out of the vehicle, brandishing a plastic gun. Gregson then ordered the police officer to his knees. Czapnik went for his gun and punched Gregson in the head. Gregson jumped on top of him and slashed Czapnik's neck, severing his jugular.
Paramedics from inside the hospital intervened, pulling Gregson off of Czapnik, who ran inside seeking help. He later died.
The paramedics subdued Gregson, put him in handcuffs, and locked him inside Czapnik's vehicle.
After his arrest, he said to a police officer, "I came here looking for a fight. You city cops are tough."
Gregson tried to argue that an operation he had for water on the brain - the insertion of a shunt to drain the fluid - affected his mental state, making him more aggressive. He described his brain as being like "Swiss cheese."
That his medical condition would have increased his aggression was disputed by medical experts who testified for the Crown.
Gregson's lawyer had asked the jury not to be influenced by Gregson's "unfortunate personality features," blaming his egoism on his coming from a patriarchal home.
"He appears insensitive to other people," he was quoted as saying in his closing statements.
