A coroner's inquest will be held into the death of a mentally ill man who was fatally shot by a Toronto police officer last summer.
Andrew Loku, 45, was shot as he wielded a hammer in the third-floor hallway of an apartment building in the Caledonia and Rogers roads area in July.
The Special Investigations Unit has previously said that officers were first called to the building for a report that Loku was threatening to kill a woman
Once on scene, the SIU said that two officers confronted Loku and ordered him to drop the hammer, which he refused to do.
Loku was then shot twice after moving to within two to three metres of one of the officers with the hammer raised above his head, the SIU said.
Following an investigation, the SIU ruled that the officer who fired the fatal shots “feared for his life and that of his partner” and did not exceed “the ambit of justifiable force.”
That decision, in turn, prompted widespread outrage and led to a 14-day protest outside police headquarters by members of the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter.
At one point, the protesters held a vigil for Loku outside the home of Premier Kathleen Wynne.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto said that the inquest is a step "in the right direction."
“We are finally seeing some concrete action from our province,” Rodney Diverlus said. "This is a major victory for Loku’s family and community, and has been a long time coming."
According to a press release, the inquest will “examine the events surrounding Loku’s death" and the jury may make recommendations on how similar deaths can be prevented.
It is not known when the inquest will be held.
