Police identify the Ottawa officer killed early this morning
Posted Dec 29, 2009 05:19:18 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Police have identified the Ottawa police officer stabbed to death early this morning. Eric Czapnik was a 51 year old Polish immigrant and father of four. He had been with the police force for three years.
The incident happened around 4:30 this morning. Paramedics on the scene were unable to save the officer’s life.
A visibly shaken Ottawa police chief, Vern White, told a news briefing, it appears the officer was in his cruiser writing up notes on an unrelated case at the time of the attack.
A former RCMP officer has been arrested. 43 year old Kevin Gregson is described as having a troubled past. He received a conditional discharge in 2007 for pulling a knife on a Mormon church official in Regina the year before.
Court heard that Gregson, who was off duty at the time, became angry and brandished a knife when a bishop refused to grant him a special card that allows members to enter Mormon temples for certain ceremonies.
“You don’t know how many ways I’ve been taught to kill,” Gregson said, according to a Crown prosecutor. Several months later Gregson had surgery to remove cysts in his brain.
He pleaded guilty in a Regina court in April 2007 to uttering a death threat. His most recent job was at a mental institution in Sault Ste. Marie.
The last time an Ottawa police officer was slain in the line of duty was in 1983 when 38-year-old Constable David Utman, was shot at a shopping centre during an altercation.
Czapnik’s family has issued the following statement:
Today we are faced with the loss of Eric, a police officer and we grieve the loss of a husband, a father of four children, a brother and a son.
Eric, who worked for 3 years as an Ottawa police officer, was a proud Polish Canadian who came to Canada in 1990. He was an engaged and dedicated police officer who truly enjoyed working in the community. He was a proud officer following in the footsteps of his father who was also an officer for over 30 years in Poland.
This is a most difficult time for our family. We would like to ask the media and the public to respect our privacy during this time.
Thank you.
the Czapnik Family
