Fear of refugees triggered shooting
Bissonnette afraid his family would be killed
QUEBEC • Alexandre Bissonnette was a ticking time bomb.
His life was in turmoil. Troubled by suicidal thoughts for more than a decade, his doctor had recently switched his anti-depressants. His parents were worried about his heavy drinking. He had just quit university, unable to keep up. He was on sick leave after being chewed out by his boss.
And for months he had been terrified Muslim terrorists would strike in Quebec City, he told a Sûreté du Québec officer 14 hours after he had killed six Muslim men at a mosque near his parents’ home.
A video recording of Bissonnette’s three-hour interrogation was shown at his sentencing hearing Friday. He has pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder.
On Jan. 29, 2017, Bissonnette was stressed about having to return to work the next day at Héma-Québec, which manages the province’s blood supply.
He started drinking sake, a rice wine, around noon. Watching TV, he heard Canada was going to accept refugees being turned away by the United States.
“When I saw that, I lost it,” Bissonnette told SQ investigator Steve Girard. “It couldn’t become like Europe here.”
A day earlier, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had tweeted: “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada”
Terrified that his family would be the victim of an attack, he left his parents’ home and headed to the mosque, carrying a rifle and handgun.
“I was like, sure that they were going to come and kill my parents also, and my family,” Bissonnette said. “I was sure about that … that’s why, that’s why I had to do something.”
It’s the first time the public has heard — from Bissonnette — a motive for his attack, which made headlines around the world and sparked a debate about Islamophobia.
In the video, Bissonnette, 27 at the time of the shooting, said he had suffered from depression and anxiety since he was 14, and had contemplated suicide at 16, though he never told his parents or friends he wanted to kill himself.
The anti-depressant medication Luvox wasn’t working so a doctor had prescribed a new one — Paxil — about three weeks earlier.
“I haven’t felt well for months and months and months and I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I thought the pills would fix the problem. But that did not solve the problem. They made it worse.”
Wearing a white jumpsuit, Bissonnette was alternately despondent and uncommunicative during the interrogation.
Girard gradually drew out the killer, asking about his life, his work, his hobbies. The police officer brought up politics, criticizing Trudeau for putting Canada in danger, and suggesting Stephen Harper had been a better prime minister.
Eventually, Bissonnette opened up.
He described a growing obsession with terrorist attacks.
He mentioned the 2014 attack at Parliament Hill, where Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot a soldier, as well as a 2016 truck attack in Nice, France, in which 86 people were killed.
By attacking the Quebec City mosque, Bissonnette said, “I thought maybe a hundred people will be saved (from terrorist attacks). Maybe 200 or 300 people, we never know.”
As he sat in the interrogation room, Bissonnette several times asked if his parents were OK and said he was sure they had been or were going to be killed.
Sitting in the prisoner’s dock Friday, Bissonnette intently watched the interrogation on a screen two metres in front of him, occasionally looking at his father sitting in the second row of the gallery, not far from members of Quebec City’s Muslim community.
During the interrogation, Bissonnette said he had researched the mosque and knew its hours. On the evening of Jan. 29, 2017, he told his parents he was going to the shooting range but went to the mosque instead, arriving just after evening prayers had ended at 7:45 p.m.
Bissonnette said the attack — which lasted about two minutes — happened so fast he didn’t remember some details. He said he did not recall walking around inside the mosque and told Girard he can’t believe six people died because he fired randomly.
He said he remembered people at the back of the prayer room but said they disappeared when he started shooting. He told Girard he fired about 10 shots; the Crown prosecutor has said he actually fired 48.
Bissonnette also said he did not remember anyone trying to stop him. Securitycamera footage screened at his hearing this week showed that a mosque worshipper, Azzeddine Soufiane, was killed as he tried to tackle Bissonnette to stop him from shooting inside the mosque. “Did they succeed (in stopping me)?” Bissonnette asked Girard. “They didn’t die, did they?”
Later, he asked if children had died and cried when Girard told him the kids survived.
“I am not a monster,” he repeated twice to Girard.
Bissonnette said he ran out of the mosque because everyone had fled. In fact, six men were dead or dying, another five were injured and 35 others, including four children, were hiding in an alcove and behind pillars.
He planned to kill himself in a forest after the shooting. Instead, Bissonnette drove off and called 911 about 10 minutes after the attack and gave himself up.
The sentencing hearing resumes Monday.