Shooting draws comparisons to Calgary case
‘Fortunate’ no deaths in ’98 botched heist
As news broke Friday about the killing of three guards during an attempted armoured car robbery in Edmonton, the spectacular gun battle that erupted at Calgary’s North Hill Mall during a botched heist in 1998 undoubtedly crossed the minds of many Calgarians.
The man who led the investigation that resulted in the conviction of three people connected to the North Hill case said he wasn’t surprised it came up, but was quick to point out the incidents are vastly different.
While little is publicly known about the planning and execution of Friday’s robbery in Edmonton — which also left a surviving guard critically wounded — the deadly outcome immediately sets it apart from the North Hill case.
“The parallel here is that it was an armoured car robbery and shots were fired — and that’s it,” said former robbery investigator Tom Marriott, who retired from the Calgary Police Service six years ago after a 28-year career.
“What happened in Edmonton is a tragedy. We were very fortunate in the Calgary situation there was no loss of life,” he said.
No loss of life — despite robbers Darnell Bass and Patrick Ryan firing nearly 90 rounds from automatic rifles after they ambushed two Brinks guards delivering nearly $400,000 to the CIBC branch inside North Hill Mall just before midnight on March 19, 1998.
Testimony in court revealed an elaborate plot orchestrated by Ryan, who worked for Brinks and also used his inside knowledge to steal $134,000 from two bank machines inside a northeast Calgary bank two months before the North Hill heist.
Ryan’s childhood friend, Bass, was a decorated Canadian Forces soldier who used his military connections to steal many of the weapons in the fearsome arsenal they brought to the mall, including tear gas canisters and a fragmentation grenade.
Ryan also enlisted his girlfriend and fellow Brinks employee, Heather Hedger, to supply keys and codes needed to pull off the ATM burglary.
He gave Hedger $4,800 for breast enhancement surgery as a reward for her participation.
Investigators in Edmonton believe Friday’s deadly robbery may have been an inside job as well. They have issued arrest warrants for Travis Brandon Baumgartner, 21, who is an employee of the armoured car company involved.
It will take time to uncover why the alleged inside job in Edmonton turned into a massacre, if it’s ever known.
Fourteen years later, it remains unclear why the North Hill robbery ended so differently, but evidence indicated Bass and Ryan never intended their assault on guards Paul Bisson and Bradley Weber to be deadly.
Initially, police charged Weber — who was Ryan’s roommate at the time — with robbery and accessory after the fact, alleging he was part of the conspiracy.
However, prosecutors stayed the charges 18 months later.
“We were never able to support that (allegation). Brad Weber always maintained that he was just a victim,” Marriott said.
The shooting started when Bisson entered the bank first and saw Bass pointing an assault rifle at him.
In an account of the robbery in his 2006 memoir, What Manner of Man, Bass recalled that a startled Bisson reached for his service revolver and opened fire.
Bass, who referred to himself in the third person, wrote he was equally startled to see Bisson — a stranger — and that he wasn’t part of their plan.
“(Bass) was face to face with a man he had never seen before. The lean, darkhaired man’s eyes bulged as Bass levelled the rifle at him,” he wrote.
Bass and Ryan both contended they returned fire with the sole purpose of making their escape.
“It was clear, at least from (Bass’) perspective, that the shots fired were — from a military perspective — suppression fire, to withdraw,” Marriott said.
The evidence supports the claim, said Marriott — most of the shots fired by the pair were aimed waist-level or higher even though Bisson and Weber were crouched on the ground. Nor did either culprit make a grab for the money before fleeing, he added.
Authorities began piecing together the plot in the weeks after the heist and caught up with Bass four months later, while he was stationed at CFB Petawawa in Ontario.
When authorities returned Bass to Calgary, a tactical team transported him from the airport in a high-security motorcade shadowed by the police helicopter.
Bass pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery in Nov. 1998 and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
He also agreed to testify against Ryan, who had fled to Europe and was arrested a month after Bass.
“We came to respect Darnell Bass for his honesty and his willingness to step up and do the right thing,” said Marriott.
Bass was a former member of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, which the federal government disbanded in 1995 after a scandal-plagued peacekeeping tour in Somalia.
Bass has said he was embittered and adrift when Ryan approached him with plans to rob Brinks trucks and ATMs.
“It was always our interpretation that it was sort of initiated and orchestrated by Patrick Ryan and Darnell Bass fell into step with it,” Marriott said.
“He was a person who knew the difference between right and wrong and he lost his way.”
Bass, now 45, was paroled in March 2001 and currently works as a locksmith in Calgary. He declined to comment for this story.
“He paid his dues for that and he’s a contributing citizen here in the city,” Marriott said.
Ryan was sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in the ATM theft and North Hill heist.
In contrast to his impression of Bass, Marriott said Ryan was the mastermind behind the crimes, whose every action served a purpose.
“It became our belief that Patrick Ryan was the type of person who did nothing for nothing,” he said.
Ryan, now 44, has been free since 2004. His current whereabouts aren’t known.
“Once in a lifetime you come across a file of this scope and challenge,” Marriott reflected.
“It was a fascinating file.”