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Vancouver Rioter Nathan Kotylak Reveals Identity, Issues Apologetic Statement

Nathan Kotylak is 17 years old. He’s a newly minted high school graduate, as well as a promising water polo player. You probably hate him.

Why? Because in addition to his graduation and budding water polo career, Kotylak was part of something else recently – the riots in Vancouver following the Canucks’ Stanley Cup Finals loss. (That’s him on the left.) His identity was previously revealed thanks to that photo, in which he’s trying to set a cop car in fire, but now he’s done it himself by releasing a statement apologizing for his actions. The following is excerpted from that statement:

I could have turned myself in quietly and taken shelter as a Young Offender, but I asked my father to make it possible for me to speak today and have my name revealed.

First, I want to say as clearly as I can that there is no excuse for my behaviour. It does not reflect the values that my family and community raised me to live by. In a moment, I acted in a way that is an embarrassment to my family, my school, my community, the Vancouver Canucks and the City of Vancouver. I am truly ashamed of what I did.

[...]

My actions have resulted in me being provisionally suspended from participation in the National Water Polo program. I know that I will also be facing charges in court. I’m not looking for any sympathy, I just want to make sure that people know that there have already been serious consequences, and I anticipate there will be more.

The third thing I want to do is start taking responsibility for what I did. I would like to send a message to other people that were involved in the incident on Wednesday Night to take responsibility for their actions and do the right thing. The people that came into Vancouver and volunteered to clean up the damage made by the mob reflect the true spirit of our community.

We’ll say this: Kotylak deserves some credit for coming out with this statement. Most of the reader comments here are ripping Kotylak, saying there’s no way he would have come forward like this had his name and photo not already been out there. We don’t blame them: as Kotylak himself said, there’s no excuse for what he did, as for only coming forward because it was already obvious what he’d done…well, that was probably true.

But he didn’t have to come out so publicly, and if there’s one thing the Ryan Giggs saga taught us, it’s that it’s no guarantee someone will come forward, even if everyone knows what they were doing. Kotylak has a long way to go to rebuild his life and reputation, but this is a start. He has to live with what he’s done, and deal with whatever consequences come of it – he flly earned his public shaming. But regardless of the context, in this case – and in a complete 180 from the night of the riots – he did the right thing.