Landlord who killed Hamilton tenants apologized for crime during police standoff: report

Ontario’s police watchdog says a Hamilton landlord who killed two tenants and then barricaded himself inside a home mentioned he wouldn’t make it out alive before he was killed in a gunfight with police.

In a new report that sheds more light on the hours-long May 27 standoff, the Special Investigations Unit says an officer used legally justified force when he shot and killed the 57-year-old landlord.

The SIU says negotiators repeatedly tried, with limited success, to reach the man holed up inside the house after he killed the two tenants, an engaged couple in their late twenties living in the unit below him.

Speaking through his family members, the SIU report says the landlord repeatedly apologized for what he’d done, indicated he wouldn’t make it out of the situation alive, and suggested he would fight police.

Almost five hours into the standoff, the SIU says the landlord fired a barrage of shots at a police armoured vehicle and an officer returned fire, killing the man.

SIU director Joseph Martino said the officer’s use of force was reasonable, noting both officers and civilians were within the gunman’s arc of fire.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 27, 2023.

The Canadian Press