National Post (National Edition)
OPP officer killed in `ambush' shooting
EASTERN ONTARIO Two other officers injured; arrest made
BOURGET, ONT. • Ontario Provincial Police say three officers who were shot early Thursday morning responding to a home southeast of Ottawa were “ambushed.”
One of the officers died and two others were injured in the shooting in Bourget, Ont.
“When three officers arrive on the scene and within minutes are shot — one is killed, another very seriously and critically injured and another injured to the point of requiring medical attention for simply arriving on the scene — I would characterize that as an ambush,” said OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique.
Just before 8 a.m., Carrique identified the dead officer as Sgt. Eric Mueller.
Mueller was an exemplary officer, a well-respected mentor and 21-year law enforcement veteran, Carrique said.
OPP said a 39-year-old man was taken into custody and charges were expected.
Carrique said no one else appeared to be inside the home during the shooting and the three officers were the only ones shot.
A long gun was found at the scene, he said.
The incident occurred at about 2 a.m. when officers from the Russell County OPP Detachment were dispatched to a “disturbance” at a home on Laval Street in Bourget.
There had been a report of at least one gunshot.
“Three officers arrived on the scene and all three were shot by an individual at the home,” OPP said in a statement.
One of the OPP officers who was injured, a 35-yearold-year-old man with 10 years of police service, has been treated in hospital and is recovering at home.
The other injured officer, a 43-year-old man with 19 years of service, remains in hospital, said Carrique.
“With multiple people shot, it's a very complicated crime scene,” said Carrique.
Bill Dickson, the OPP's manager of media relations, said the three officers approached the house together, then spread out, as they had been trained to do.
“Then they went radio silent.”
Both Carrique and Dickson both reflected in the number of recent deaths of police officers.
“It was just Sunday, just days ago, that we attended the Ontario Police Memorial,” said Carrique.
“Since September, Canada has lost 10 officers in the line of duty, nine of which were murdered. Today, with the murder of Sgt. Eric Mueller, that makes five police officers in the province of Ontario that have been murdered since September,” he said.
Dickson said the force's thoughts are with Mueller's family and with the injured officers, their families and colleagues.
The Russell County detachment is a close-knit group, he said. “I have to tell you, this is the most traumatic kind of thing that could happen,” he said.
At the Civic campus of the Ottawa Hospital, about a dozen OPP officers stood quietly outside the emergency room entrance, forming a flanking line when senior OPP officers, including Carrique, arrived just before 8 a.m.
Marked and unmarked Ottawa police and OPP vehicles lined the road outside the hospital.
A black-and-white OPP helicopter sat on the hospital's landing pad.
Residents in the town of Bourget, about 45 minutes east of Ottawa, were shaken to learn the news.
Mitch Carrington is the manager of Mike Dean Local Grocer, Bourget's main grocery store.
He said that residents are still grappling with what happened.
“This is an extremely tight-knit community,” he said. “Things like this just don't happen here.”
Carrington has been with the store for six years and said the biggest police-related news he can recall would have been something like a break-in or minor drug possession bust.
“Everyone is talking about this, and I think everyone is still in a state of shock. People don't understand how this fits in.”
Jeff Hunt, who lives on Laval Street, a few hundred metres west of where the shooting took place, said he was just going outside for a cigarette at around 2 a.m. when he heard the shots.
“It was like “pop, pop, pop! “he said. “And then about 20 minutes later, it was nothing but cop car after cop car.
“I assumed it was something big,” he added. “They were too many cars. Too many police.”
Another neighbour, Robbyn Annett-Laub, wasn't woken by the shots or the ensuing sirens, but says she inexplicably woke up shortly after 3 a.m. and got out of bed and went to lock her back door.
“I just had this weird gut feeling, locked my back door and went back to bed.”
Annett-Laub, a waitress at Ramigab Resto-Bar in Bourget, said she knows just about everyone in town, but she didn't know the residents of the house where the incident took place.
“It's a very tight-knit community,” she said. “I pretty much know every face in this town and it's shaking up everybody right now. I must've had a little thousand calls from people, and everyone is upset.
“We never expected something like this would happen in Bourget, and I've lived here since I was a baby.”
IT'S A VERY COMPLICATED CRIME SCENE.