Canada

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Richard Kachkar is shown in an undated photo taken from a Facebook page. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Facebook

A barefoot man who killed a police officer with a stolen snowplow after a bizarre rampage through the streets two years ago had clearly lost his grip on reality, his first-degree murder trial heard Thursday.

In closing submissions, defence lawyer Bob Richardson said Richard Kachkar could not be held criminally responsible given his delusional state.

"He lacked capacity to form criminal intent," Richardson told the jury.

"He wasn't operating in our world."

Dressed in light dress pants and shirt under a dark blazer, Kachkar, 44, listened impassively as his lawyer reprised the evidence of three psychiatrists, who concluded he was psychotic when he struck and left a dying Sgt. Ryan Russell, 35, bleeding in the snow.

Richardson reminded jurors how a shoeless Kachkar had bolted from a downtown shelter out into the snow on the early morning of Jan. 12, 2011.

"Whatever slim hold Mr. Kachkar may have had on reality, slips away," Richardson said.

"His psychotic beliefs are driving his behaviour."

Kachkar went into and then fled a nearby doughnut shop, jumping into the idling snowplow. He drove erratically through the streets, making frequent U-turns, hitting cars and yelling about Chinese technology, the Taliban and microchips in his body.

"I don't remember. I was chased everywhere," Kachkar would later tell a police investigator.

Richardson quoted Kachkar at another point as saying:

"I don't know what happened. It was like a dream or something. A normal person wouldn't do that. I don't know what's going on."