CHAOS AND HORROR DESCRIBED
Warrant reveals mosque shooting details
Alexandre Bissonnette calmly dined with his parents before telling them he was going to a shooting range on the night he allegedly shot and killed six men at a Quebec City mosque in January.
His behaviour that night did not appear to raise alarms, and a visit to the gun club wasn’t out of the ordinary, as his parents knew he kept three weapons in a locker in his mother’s basement.
The new details are in a Feb. 6 warrant made public by a Quebec Court judge Friday in response to a request from seven media outlets, including the Montreal Gazette.
The document also details the chaos and horror described by those in the mosque during the shooting, and the police officers who arrived minutes after it was over.
Bissonnette, a 27-year-old Université Laval student, is facing six first-degree murder charges and six attempted-murder charges. His trial is to start on March 26, 2018.
The day after the Jan. 29 massacre, Raymond Bissonnette, the alleged gunman’s father, told police his son owned two handguns — a Glock and a Sig Sauer — and a Browning long gun. The father said they were registered.
Manon Marchand, Alexandre Bissonnette’s mother, told investigators that after dining with his parents, he went to the shooting range, but it was closed. She didn’t hear from him again that night.
Bissonnette was a member of Le Club de Tir Castors de Charlesbourg, about eight kilometres from the mosque. The Quebec City shooting range told police Bissonnette was accredited for handgun shooting.
The 19-page warrant reveals some details about Bissonnette’s life. His mother told police he had recently worked for Héma-Québec, which manages the province’s blood supply, but was fired after his bosses learned that he had badmouthed them for not giving him time off.
The document also discloses some of the information police pieced together about the night of the slayings.
Mosque surveillance video from the night of the shooting shows a white man with dark hair and dressed in dark clothing entering the mosque at 7:54 p.m., the warrant says. He’s holding a handgun in his right hand and can be seen shooting a man.
The first call to 911 arrived around the same time — 7:54 p.m.
About four minutes later, the first police officers arrived.
They found pools of blood and victims scattered around the mosque, some of them fatally shot in the head, others bleeding profusely. Four men died on the scene; two more would die later in a hospital.
Gun smoke hung in the air, as did the strong odour of gunpowder.
Spent cartridges littered the floor. At least one weapon was spotted; it resembled an AK-47.
Another handgun was later found in Bissonnette’s car, the warrant says.
Thirty to 40 panicky people remained in the mosque, where evening prayers had just ended; some were hiding behind pillars or in alcoves, others were laying on the ground.
In the confusion, police were unsure if one or multiple shooters had caused the carnage. They chased and arrested a man who ran from them but he turned out to be a mosque member who mistook police for attackers.
The first officers to arrive saw two bodies on the ground — one man shot in the head, another with multiple wounds.
In the mosque “several people are standing, sitting or laying down,” one of officers recounts in the warrant. He saw “the wounded and a lot of blood.” Police told everyone to put their hands in the air, as they walked over bodies of the dead and injured to search the premises.
The attack itself was brief but horrifying.
Abdel Achouba told investigators that after prayers ended around 7:45 p.m., he was sitting with two other men when he heard what sounded like explosions in the next room. They thought firecrackers had been set off.
Then, Achouba “saw a man enter the building and start shooting with a handgun,” the warrant says. The gunman fired indiscriminately at people as they were getting their shoes in a vestibule and then entered the prayer room, guns blazing.
Two men tried to stop the shooter; both were shot. One of them — Azzedine Soufiane — died. “Azzedine lunged at (the shooter) to disarm him. He shot Azzedine at close range in the face ... and continued to shoot as he entered the prayer room.”
Another witness said Azzedine was shot once as he stood, and three or four more times as he lay on the floor.
Yvan Godbout, who lives near the mosque, told police he was on the phone that night and peeked through his curtains after hearing loud bangs.
He saw an injured man laying on the ground, a broken window and a man dressed in black in the mosque parking lot.
The man initially ran down a street, then slowed his pace and walked away, Godbout said.
Bissonnette was arrested about an hour after the shooting. He was in his father’s grey Mitsubishi SUV near the bridge to Île d’Orléans, about 20 kilometres from the mosque.
Police have video surveillance footage from Jan. 26, three days before the shooting.
At 7:38 p.m. that night, a man is seen near the mosque for almost 30 minutes, entering twice. “The individual did not seem to know the mosque ritual of removing one’s shoes as you enter,” the warrant said.
Bouhassine Khaled told police he spoke to a man who showed up at the mosque on Jan. 26 at around 8 p.m.
Wearing a long black coat, the man didn’t answer when Khaled greeted him. Khaled said that after seeing photos of Bissonnette, he was 95 per cent sure he was the man who visited the mosque that night.
The man was wearing a darkcoloured tuque, a knee-length black coat, dark pants, beige hiking shoes, and was carrying a bag with a shoulder strap, the warrant says.
Police filed the warrant so they could seize items that match those descriptions.
The document notes police also filed other warrants to obtain information from Bissonnette’s cellphone provider, his shooting range and his parents.
Bissonnette’s lawyers had objected to the release of parts of the warrant that refer to information police obtained from his parents.
They argued that while some of those who provided details in the warrants have told their stories to the news media, Bissonnette’s mother and father fall into a different category because they have remained mum.
A judge is to hear arguments about whether to release that information on Nov. 17.
As it was made public Friday, the warrant contains several blackedout sections. Details about a 911 call made on the night of the shooting are missing, as is some information obtained from Université Laval.
In allowing the Feb. 6 warrant to be released, Judge Alain Morand said any articles about the document should mention that Bissonnette is presumed innocent and that he has not yet had the chance to enter a plea or contest the allegations, which have not been proven in court.
The gunman fired indiscriminately at people as they were getting their shoes in a vestibule and then entered the prayer room, guns blazing.