RCMP not ready for rampage: ex-official
Slain officers lacked ‘proper equipment’
Justin Bourque went on a killing rampage last June, hunting down police officers in a residential neighbourhood in Moncton, N.B. Three RCMP officers were killed and two others were wounded.
An investigative documentary says the officers might still be alive if they had been carrying patrol carbines — a semi-automatic rifle that has been used by other police agencies for years — and better training.
The producers of Under Fire, to be broadcast Saturday on the Global News investigative series 16×9, have used a string of internal documents, memos and first-time interviews to uncover whether the RCMP officers were prepared to respond to Bourque’s attack.
“There was not any preparedness whatsoever,” says Terry McKee, a retired corporal and team leader from the Codiac Regional RCMP. “They went into that without having proper equipment. Fabrice (Gevaudan) was the first one shot and killed and maybe that was in- evitable. But if the carbines would have been here, perhaps it would have been only him.”
The first officers on the scene were equipped with 9mm pistols, which are effective only against targets less than 25 metres away.
Carbines have four times that range and a much higher round capacity, allowing officers to continue a gunfight for much longer.
The only person with access to a semi-automatic that June evening was Justin Bourque.
RCMP leaders have known for about a decade that there is a need for more powerful weapons.
The public inquiry that followed the Mayerthorpe, Alta., killings in 2005 which left four officers dead concluded that the officers were not equipped with the right weapons, and cited “an urgent need for carbines.”
The RCMP promised in 2011 to issue carbines to front-line officers, but the rollout has been slow.
“It has not been a priority in the RCMP,” says Prof. Darryl Davies, a criminology lecturer in the department of sociology and anthropology at Carleton University. “This is a reflection of poor leadership, poor communication skills and reflects the disconnect between the rank-and-file and their perceived needs, and national headquarters and what they think is needed.”
The carbine issue was put on the back burner after Robert Dziekanski was Tasered to death at the Vancouver International Airport in 2007. At that time, the RCMP came under fire for excessive use of force.
Reporters obtained an internal email sent Feb. 10, 2009 in which the status of the carbine rollout was demoted to “... one of those lower priorities.”
At the time of the 911 call last June 4, a carbine training course in New Brunswick had just started, and the Codiac detachment’s six carbines were an hour and a half away.
In the aftermath of the Moncton shooting, the RCMP commissioned an independent review, which made 64 recommendations. Not surprisingly, there was a call to immediately put carbines in the hands of front-line officers. But the report also highlighted an alarming lack of training.
A freedom of information request filed by Global reporters uncovered that only 59 per cent of the officers in the Codiac detachment have received Immediate Action Rapid Deployment (IARD) training, which prepares officers for crisis situations. Across the RCMP, the proportion is even lower, with fewer than a third of officers having received this training.
Some forces, such as the Ontario Provincial Police, have made IARD training mandatory.