A $23-million wrongful death suit launched against Toronto police four years ago by the family of slain Norfolk County gunsmith Rodger Kotanko is getting closer to a courtroom.
Lawyers for the Kotanko family and the Toronto Police Service Board made a brief court appearance on Wednesday to arrange for a July 15 conference to schedule a trial.
Kotanko, 70, was fatally shot in November 2021, moments after officers from the service’s guns and gangs task force burst into the veteran gunsmith’s shop west of Port Dover.
According to search warrant documents, two handguns registered to Kotanko had been seized by police in Toronto and North Bay. The weapons’ serial numbers had been “professionally” removed with a milling machine, police allege, but forensic reconstruction revealed the numbers and branding that matched one of Kotanko’s registered businesses, RK Custom Guns.
Investigators allege Kotanko — who was authorized to buy, sell and repair guns — had not reported the guns stolen or missing, prompting the task force to get a search warrant for his shop on Port Ryerse Road.
Lawyers for the Kotanko family allege Toronto police “recklessly targeted Kotanko, negligently planned the raid and exercised excessive and unjustifiable force.”
Officers “did not follow proper procedure,” the plaintiffs allege, and thus “created a situation of danger” by not intercepting the gunsmith when he and his wife got home from a shopping trip and before he entered his workshop full of firearms.
That decision “substantially increased the likelihood that Rodger would be badly injured (or) killed,” the lawsuit alleges, calling the police action “a gross and negligent misuse of power.”
Looping in local law enforcement well ahead of the action against Kotanko — who reportedly counted Norfolk OPP officers among his clients — instead of at the last minute “would have minimized the potential for harm to Rodger and the officers,” the statement of claim alleges.
The plaintiffs allege officers never showed the search warrant to any member of the Kotanko family, making the search and seizure of Kotanko’s property “unlawful.”
The lawsuit also accuses Toronto police of preventing Kotanko’s wife, Xueqin Mai, from comforting her husband after he was shot.
“The family is looking for answers on how this escalated the way it did, resulting in Rodger’s death,” lawyer Michael Smitiuch of Smitiuch Injury Law told The Spectator in a recent interview.
“They’re ultimately looking to clear Rodger’s name — his good name that he had as a well-regarded and renowned gunsmith.”
Gunsmith was ‘author of his own misfortune,’ defendants say
The defendants deny any wrongdoing, claiming Kotanko was “the author of his own misfortune” because he did not obey officers’ commands to raise his hands, allegedly choosing instead to pick up a gun off his workbench and point it at armed police officers.
The officers were allegedly in plainclothes and wearing safety vests with the word “POLICE” in large white block letters across the front.
The officers “acted in a professional, competent and reasonable fashion without negligence,” said the statement of defence, rejecting the plaintiffs’ “unfounded and meritless allegations of malice and bad faith.”
The police also deny an allegation made by the Kotanko estate that officers seized $20,000 in cash from the workshop that has never been accounted for.
Jonathan Thoburn, a partner at Toronto law firm Borden Ladner Gervais, is representing the defendants. Reached by The Spectator, he declined to comment while the matter is before the courts.
Police watchdog cleared officer who fired fatal shots
Special Investigations Unit director Joseph Martino cleared the police of wrongdoing in 2022, ruling the officer who killed Kotanko fired “to protect himself” after the gunsmith, “for whatever reason,” allegedly ignored orders to raise his hands.
The gun Kotanko allegedly pointed at the officers was later found to be inoperable, but the officer could not have known that in the moment, Martino said.
Crucially, Martino said, the testimony of a civilian customer who was in the shop with Kotanko matched the officers’ account of the shooting.
That customer — identified in court documents only by the initials C.W. — launched a separate lawsuit against Toronto police and the Kotanko estate seeking $2.6 million in damages for “extreme mental distress and emotional harm.”
The allegations in that lawsuit have not been tested in court.
The Kotanko family’s lawsuit alleges “psychiatric damage” — as seen in ongoing “mental distress,” mood disorders, nightmares and flashbacks — as well as loss of income and household support.
“Even though time has gone by, this remains at the front of their minds, given how traumatic it was and how great their loss was,” Smitiuch said.
Should the civil suit come before a judge, the Kotankos want a jury trial in Simcoe while lawyers for Toronto police want the matter heard in Toronto.
By J.P. Antonacci, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Jun 29, 2026 at 08:44
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