Details about fredericton shooting revealed
Alleged gunman was shot in abdomen
FREDERICTON •Sgt.Jason Forward arrived at the Fredericton apartment complex moments after constables Robb Costello and Sara Burns. They immediately went up the driveway at 237 Brookside Dr., where there had been a 911 call of shots fired. Forward stopped to question a passerby. It was around 7:20 a.m. on the morning of Friday, Aug. 10. Then he heard gunshots. Forward ran to the back of Building C, where the shots were coming from a top-floor apartment. On the ground he saw the bodies of Burns and Costello lying near that of another man, Donnie Robichaud. None were moving.
A fourth victim, Bobbie Lee Wright, was dead in the passenger seat of her vehicle parked nearby. The windshield had been blown out.
“Sgt. Forward moved to the side of Building C and was able to determine the location of the shooter as this person was still shooting,” according to the prosecutor’s information sheet made public by a judge on Friday.
The document, initially filed with the court when 48-year-old Matthew Vincent Raymond was charged with four counts of first-degree murder, details how the deadly attack unfolded.
Forward and another officer, identified as a Const. Fox, entered the building and set up a containment in the stairwell to the top floor. They confirmed that the gunman was inside apartment 11-C.
“Sgt. Forward advised responding (Fredericton Police Force) members that if the shooter presents himself in the window they should engage him,” the prosecutor sheet says.
Outside, another officer, Const. Arbeau, looked up and saw the gunman point a long gun at him. Arbeau fired.
“Const. Arbeau believed he had hit the shooter in the torso,” the document says.
Members of the force’s Emergency Response Team then stormed apartment 11C and arrested the suspected shooter. He had been shot in the abdomen.
Costello, Robichaud and Wright were declared dead at the scene. Burns was rushed to hospital, where she too was pronounced dead.
Robichaud, a 42-year-old separated father of two who lived in the building, and Wright, 32, had just begun a relationship. Police have said they were killed first and the two officers were shot when they went to their aid.
The alleged gunman told Const. Debbie Stafford his name was Matthew Raymond. The building superintendent, Gerald McKay, confirmed the identity.
Stafford read Raymond his rights.
He was taken to hospital where he underwent surgery.
Police searched his apartment and found “items believed to be firearm(s) and ammunition,” according to the prosecutor’s sheet. No one else was inside.
The details contained in the document were first published in the local Fredericton paper, The Daily Gleaner, four days after the shooting. The Crown successfully asked the court for a retroactive publication ban, citing the privacy of the identified police officers. Several media organizations, including Postmedia News, fought the ban. Media lawyer David Coles argued that the information was already in the public domain and that the names of the officers could be learned from other sources.
On Friday, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Judy Clendening lifted the ban.
“I do not find that the salutary effects of granting the publication ban strongly outweighs the deleterious impacts,” Clendening said.
In her decision, the judge noted that RCMP Staff Sgt. Jean-Marc Pare indicated it was an oversight on his part that the prosecutor’s information sheet was attached to the basic identifying information filed with the court.
“It was unfortunate that it found its way into the public file, and it was also unfortunate that before the information was released it was not brought to the attention of a judge of the provincial court for further direction,” Clendening said.
Burns, a 43-year-old mother with two years on the force, and Costello, a 45-year-old father and a veteran officer, will be buried on Saturday in a regimental funeral.
Thousands of police officers and other first responders from across North America are expected to attend.
The final goodbye follows an emotional public visitation in downtown Fredericton Thursday. Hundreds attended the event held at the Fredericton Convention Centre, where the families of Costello and Burns stood near large framed photographs of the fallen officers as a steady stream of people paid their respects.
The lives of the other two victims of the shooting were also honoured this week by their families and friends.