Dziekanski controversy mothballed RCMP carbine research, trial told
MONCTON, N.B. — Research into carbine rifles for front-line Mounties was shelved amid a firestorm of controversy related to the 2007 death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport after the Polish immigrant was Tasered by Mounties, an RCMP expert testified Tuesday at the national police force’s trial on charges of violating the Canada Labour Code.
The allegations against the RCMP stem from its response to Justin Bourque’s 2014 shooting rampage in Moncton, N.B., which claimed the lives of three officers and left two others wounded. Bourque shot each of the officers with a semi-automatic assault rifle.
Police use of the C8 carbine, also a high-powered assault rifle, became a central focus in the fallout from the Moncton shootings.
At the time, officers complained they were outgunned by Bourque because they did not have carbines, which have a greater range than the officers’ standardissue pistols.
Testifying in Moncton provincial court, RCMP Supt. Bruce Stuart said he wrote a briefing note in 2006 that recommended the force look at using carbine rifles, but after the deadly stun-gun incident involving RCMP officers at the Vancouver airport on Oct. 14, 2007, his focus was shifted to conducted energy weapons, such as the Taser.
“It triggered a storm nationally in regards to media and public interest, and I think not only the RCMP, but police agencies across Canada had a general feeling there was a risk of losing a weapon that law enforcement felt was a good tool,” Stuart told Judge Leslie Jackson.
Stuart was the first witness to testify at the trial. The charges against the RCMP allege it failed to provide members and supervisors with the appropriate information, instruction and training in an active-shooter event, and didn’t give members the appropriate equipment.
Court heard Stuart was later told by an RCMP deputy commissioner that “nothing” had been happening with the carbine issue since the Tasering incident in B.C. and subsequent backlash.
“He basically said there were other priorities and this had fallen off the list of priorities,” the 26-year veteran of the RCMP said, adding that the conversation had taken place sometime between 2008 and 2010.
Stuart, a certified carbine instructor, said calls for members to be armed with long guns rather than pistols came after a 2006 shooting in Spiritwood, Sask., in which two Mounties were killed by rifle fire.
Crown prosecutor Paul Adams is expected to continue questioning Stuart today. Adams has said the majority of the officers in Moncton who responded to the active-shooter call on June 4, 2014 lacked full training and requalification in firearms.