RCMP UNPREPARED FOR ATTACK
Program shows police lack training
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 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 inevitable. 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 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 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 90 minutes 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. It is often the only active shooting practice that officers receive.
The training is not mandatory in the RCMP. Officers concerned by the lack of IARD training filed a formal complaint with the federal government in 2011.
Some officers, fearing for their safety, have turned to private tactical training companies and paid for courses out of their own pocket. Global found officers who have gone so far as to purchase their own firearms.
“I know there are cops out there who have gone and purchased body armour to go above and beyond what the RCMP is providing,” McKee says.
Carbine training is now being expedited in the wake of the deaths in Moncton. More than 2,200 carbines have been delivered across the country to meet the needs of 12,000 officers.
Some detachments still do not have access to carbines, nor have their officers received the recommended training.
“Now we’ve got this mishmash of evaluation of detachments, using risk analysis,” Davies says. “It’s absurd.”
In Moncton, officers confirm that more carbines are available now.
“Moncton would have never received carbines if this risk assessment model was employed (before the Bourne rampage) because it lacked serious violent crime,” Prof. Davies says. The only way that you can forecast risk is based on what has transpired recently.”
There are cops out there who have gone and purchased body armour to go above and beyond what the RCMP is providing.