Mounties acted appropriately in fatal Mayerthorpe shootings
Posted Mar 28, 2011 9:43 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
An inquiry into the deaths of four Mounties in Mayerthorpe in 2005 has found the RCMP responded properly in the shootings.
But, the report also finds the officers should have had more background information and and access to more weapons when they were securing James Roszko’s farm in March 2005.
The report says the Mounties were “heavily outgunned” by Roszko and it recommends, they should have quicker access to heavier, long-barreled weapons.
In a written decision, Judge Daniel Pahl also recommends the RCMP should create national guidelines on how to secure crime scenes and that a standardized risk assessment system for high-risk, pre-planned operations be developed.
Pahl commends the force for already implementing several of the recommendations, like providing officers with more body armour.
Roszko, who was running a grow operation, opened fire on Constables Anthony Gordon, Leo Jonston, Brock Myrol and Peter Schiemann before turning the gun on himself in a Quonset hut.
One of the key points in the inquiry was whether RCMP took the threat of Roszko returning to his property seriously enough, given his long criminal history and previous run-ins with the law.
But Pahl found that there was nothing to suggest that Roszko was likely to “engage in a premeditated attack against the RCMP.”
