Hill shooter exploited by jihadists, top cop says

Police suspect jihadist sympathizers exploited Michael Zehaf-Bibeau’s faltering mental state and influenced him to launch the armed attack last year on the National War Memorial and Parliament Hill, the head of the RCMP said Tuesday.

Commissioner Bob Paulson, in an interview with the Citizen, also revealed that about 850 RCMP employees are now engaged in counterterrorism operations, up from 280 at the time of Zehaf-Bibeau’s shooting rampage Oct. 22, 2014 that killed war memorial sentry Cpl. Nathan Cirillo.

Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, ran on to Parliament Hill seconds after shooting Cirillo, 24. He hijacked a minister’s car, drove to the front door of Centre Block, then raced inside. He struggled with guard Const. Samearn Son at the front door, shooting him in the leg, then ran down the Hall of Honour before dying in a shootout with police and security guards.

Zehaf-Bibeau had a history of drug and mental problems. Paulson, who has previously said others are believed to have influenced his actions, went further Tuesday.

“There are people that saw him deteriorating (mentally) and, I think, there might have been people that were taking advantage of him, so we do have a little bit more insight, but nothing that would (lead to) a recommendation for a charge.”

The global terrorist threat is rapidly evolving, Paulson noted, with ISIL and its partisans now demonstrating capabilities to strike at crowded public venues such as Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.

“The nature of the threat is more acute ... (terrorists) are demonstrating their willingness to launch overseas attacks,” said Paulson, who marked his fourth year as commissioner last week.

“That’s not lost on us, our partners, (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and others. And that is really upping the stakes.”

The future, he said, will remain turbulent and the nation needs to have a discussion over how “resilient” we are for this.

“One of the features of terrorism is that there is zero room for failure. We’re not accepting any terrorist attacks. Canadians have been reassured by some very successful (counterterrorism) operations between CSIS and the RCMP in recent years and that’s good ... certainly you don’t want to have an attack that’s preventable and that’s how I’m approaching this.

“And so that’s why (nearly) 600 officers from organized crime cases (have been reassigned) into counterterrorism and making sure that if we have information that’s actionable, that it’s actioned.”

Paulson said a successful attack on Parliament Hill could not happen today. The concept of security operations has been overhauled, including the creation of the Parliamentary Protective Service from the former RCMP Hill security detachment and House of Commons and Senate security forces.

All points of entry to the Hill are now monitored by several officers from various fields of vision, and guns are at the ready.

“We’re armed to the teeth,” said Paulson.

Of Zehaf-Bibeau’s brash assault, he acknowledged, “he shouldn’t have gotten past the gate.”

“He shouldn’t have gotten in the car. He shouldn’t have gotten out of the car. He shouldn’t have gotten into the building and he shouldn’t have gotten down the hall.

“There’s no good way to look at that except that we got a very valuable insight into the vulnerabilities of that entire precinct.

“The good news is that the unified force now is in place. Communications (interoperability) — solved. Joint training — underway.”

But the RCMP’s criminal investigation into the events has all but hit a dead-end on the origin of the .30-30-calibre Winchester 1894 rifle Zehaf-Bibeau carried, he said.

The question has always been whether someone gave him the gun, which would suggest a wider conspiracy.

But, “if you’re going to give somebody a gun to go do a terrorist attack, you’re probably not going to give him that gun,” said Paulson.