Residents remained barricaded in their homes and schools and businesses were closed in Moncton, New Brunswick, yesterday as the hunt continued for a man believed responsible for killing three police officers and wounding two others.
The three members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were shot and killed after responding to an emergency call about a man seen wearing military-style camouflage clothing and carrying two rifles near woods adjacent to a subdivision.
Witnesses told several TV broadcasters that the police officers had apparently been ambushed. A hospital spokesman said the two injured officers were in stable condition and that their injuries were not life-threatening.
Motive unclear Police said they are looking for Justin Bourque
(24), who lives in Moncton, a city of 69,000. They released a photograph of a man who they said is Bourque carrying two rifles in the city’s northwest.
The motive for the attack is unclear, although a Facebook account apparently belonging to Bourque contained some postings expressing anti-police sentiments. The killings shocked Moncton, where serious crimes are rare. Late on Wednesday, Constable Damien Theriault, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, appeared upset before cutting short a TV briefing.
“We are professionals,” said Constable Theriault in French while struggling to hold back tears. “We will ensure the security of the public. We are going to do that.”
At that point he abruptly walked away. Reinforcements from police detachments throughout New Brunswick and two other Canadian provinces have continued to pour into Moncton. While the Mounties are a national police force, they provide rural and municipal policing under contract in many parts of Canada.
A police helicopter with thermal imaging cameras has been searching the city since last night. At least two armoured cars have been borrowed by the mounted police to transport heavily-armed tactical team members. Television images have shown several cars and police vehicles with bullet holes and shattered windows in the residential area.
Vanessa Bernatchez, speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from her basement, said that she had tapped on a window in a vain attempt to warn the first officer on the scene that the gunman had been hiding behind her house.
Alarmed by gunfire
The incident happened on what was one of the first summer-like evenings in the area. Residents said they dropped their hoses and left their lawn mowers behind to seek shelter after learning that the noises they heard were gunfire.
At the request of police, the CBC took the unusual step of asking Moncton residents to lock themselves in their houses during Wednesday evening’s nationwide broadcast of the Stanley Cup hockey finals.
The killings echoed another mounted police slaying. In March 2005, five officers were ambushed and killed in an Alberta barn during a raid on a site suspected of being used for growing marijuana.
– (New York Times)