Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit will come under an independent review along with the province’s two other police oversight agencies, the Ministry of the Attorney General announced Friday.

The review is expected to be delivered by next March.

Minister Madeleine Meilleur said in a statement released to media that she will urge Justice Michael Tulloch, a judge of the Ontario Court of Appeal who will lead the independent review, to make recommendations on how information contained in SIU reports can be made public.

“The government expects to receive these prioritized recommendations in the coming months,” she said.

Along with the announcement, the ministry also released for the first time, 9 pages of a 34-page report drafted by the SIU in their investigation into the death of Andrew Loku at the hands of Toronto police in July, 2015. The 9 pages were heavily redacted to protect the identity of the police officers involved in the case.

SIU reports have never been made public before and the ministry said Friday that it would not be making an exception in this case because of “privacy and safety constraints and legal requirements.”

Advocacy group Black Lives Matter had been pushing for months for the SIU report to be made public, and for the shooting officer’s name to be released. The officer was cleared of any wrongdoing by the SIU, a decision that was heavily protested by Black Lives Matter members. They say that Loku’s death was unjustified and just another case of police brutality against black people in the city.

Black Lives Matter have yet to officially responded to the report's partial release or to the news of the review.

Desmond Cole, a journalist who has been outspoken on the treatment of the black community at the hands of police, tweeted about the partially released report, calling it a "disrespect" to Loku's family.

"I want to note that the first-ever public SIU report was released on a Friday afternoon," he wrote, suggesting that governments are less likely to be scrutinized at the end of the work week. "Disrespect."

Cole also took issue with the amount of time it will take to complete the review.

In an interview with CP24 Friday afternoon, Cole said Loku's family should have the answers to the questions they are asking immediately.

"What a disrespect to say, 'Wait another year to find out if the police and SIU handled this properly," he said.

Report gives glimpse into Loku altercation

The public got its first official glimpse into the details of the altercation between police and Loku in the pages of the report that were distributed.

Police and civilian witnesses told SIU investigators that Andrew Loku was marching down his apartment hallway towards officers with a hammer lifted over his head, goading them to shoot him.

“What you gonna do, come on, shoot me,” Loku was heard saying.

Officers had initially been called to the apartment in the area of Caledonia and Rogers roads for a report of a man threatening to kill a woman with a hammer around midnight on July 5, 2015.

The report says police arrived at the scene at 12:05 a.m. Loku was shot at 12:07 a.m. and pronounced dead at 12:26 a.m.

The SIU excused the officers involved of wrongdoing, saying the close quarters of the officers’ position in the apartment hallway made it impossible for the police to back away and create more distance, the report says.

Loku closed in from eight or nine metres away to within two or three metres of two Toronto police officers before he was shot twice in the torso.

“From that moment, it was a matter of seconds until the shooting, at which time I have no doubt that (the subject officer) feared for his or her life and that of his or her partner,” the report said.

But Cole said he has issues with the details presented in the report.

“Loku was kind shocked at the police response and that were drawing their weapons at him,” Cole said. “The police’s interpretation, just like their interpretation of him rushing at them with a hammer is disputed by a number of witnesses.”

Loku, a 45-year-old migrant from South Sudan, suffered from mental health issues and lived in an apartment subsidized by the Canadian Mental Health Association.

But the SIU report suggests “there was no indication Mr. Loku’s mental health was the reason that he acted in the way that he did.”

Instead, the report says Loku was intoxicated at the time of the encounter with police, and his blood alcohol level was 247 milligrams for every 100 millilitres of blood -- more than three times the legal limit.

The SIU also found that the Canadian Mental Health Association makes a point of not disclosing to police where its subsidized housing is located, so as to not create a stigma for residents.

The SIU said it obtained the notes from both the officer who fired his or her weapon and his or her partner’s notes, as well as notes from nine other witness officers, audio of radio communications of the incident, as well as interviews with 15 civilian witnesses.

The report also touches on the troubling actions of a police officer after the incident.

The SIU said it also found that a police officer not involved in the incident “saw fit to attempt to review and download the video recordings captured by cameras” in the apartment hallway.

“I have not as yet heard an adequate explanation for the officer’s conduct.”

The video contained gaps – something that has raised the suspicion of police critics.

However the report says that SIU investigators found that the cameras simply did not record the shooting incident, and had not been tampered with.

“That explanation however, becomes much more difficult to accept when police unduly insert themselves in the post-incident investigation, as they appear to have done in this case,” the report says.

I want to know why they would try and access video from inside the apartment before the SIU could have it,” Cole said. “Why would they want that video before you and I can see it? I really want an answer to that question.”