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3 March 2005 - Four RCMP Murdered at Seized Marijuana Grow-Op

pbi said:
This is a terrible loss for the RCMP: too bad the murderer isn't around to face the music.

Cheers. :salute: :cdn:

Exactly how I feel, pbi. Though I do not feel that he deserves to live, I would much rather see him try to survive the prison system labeled a "cop killer". That would be much more justice.
 
I used to make weekly deliveries to the Whtecourt RCMP detachment at my old job.  Nice officers, very polite and more than happy to take time out of their day to provide directions to a out of town delivery guy.  Prayers to the families of the victims. :salute: :cdn:
 
â Å“To Serve and Protectâ ? is a role that police officers are called upon to perform. The RCMP accomplished this role at a high price, on March 3rd, 2005, with the loss of four officers.

"They shall not grow old as we grow old;
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them."


 
I have no words or speeches to add but I will keep an eye on when the funeral happens. I can feel a day of leave and a road trip coming on.

My thoughts and sympathies go out to the families of the officers and to the fallen I salute you.

:salute: :cdn: :salute:


http://www.rcmp.ca/news/commissioner_statement_e.htm

 
This is truly frightening.  Terrorism can now be considered an effective tactic in Canada.  I'm only surprised that it took so long since the FLQ crisis.  Criminals now know that they can effectively engage the enemy with results, even if suicidal.  This proves that Canada is vulnerable to asymmetricalism.  If the army had been there with a surveillance, overwatch and cut off (SF Kit) group this wouldn't have happened.  "Time spent on Reconnaissance is rarely wasted."  All my sympathies to the RCMPs, as I know a few of them....
 
What a waste...

RIP gents.  :cdn: :salute:

My heart goes to their families.
 
'Sacrifice just awful'

MASSACRE STUNS FANTINO, 40 TOP COPS

By ALAN CAIRNS AND HIMANI EDIRIWEERA, TORONTO SUN

THE MURDERS of four RCMP officers at an Alberta pot farm has "devastated" a delegation of 40 top Ontario cops studying anti-terrorism measures in strife-torn Israel. "It is the middle of the night and not too many people are sleeping right now after hearing about this tragedy," former Toronto chief and Ontario's new emergency czar Julian Fantino said from Tel Aviv early this morning.

"The sacrifice these young men have made ... is just awful ... there have been too many people sleeping on this issue."

One day into his new portfolio, Fantino led a group of 33 police chiefs and deputy chiefs under the umbrella of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP), Ontario's Community Safety Minister Monte Kwinter and OPP Commissioner Gwen Boniface to Israel to study anti-terrorism strategies.

Fantino said OACP has warned about the perils of marijuana grow houses "for years."

"It is just so tragic that such a point had to be made as it has been in this way," Fantino said.

"What a tragedy. Words escape me," Fantino added.

Fantino's replacement in Toronto, interim chief Michael Boyd, said the murders stunned Toronto Police.

"The policing family across the country -- we're all very supportive of one another," Boyd said.

"The four slain officers are heroes," said Dave Wilson, president of the Toronto Police Association.

"We must never forget how they sacrificed their lives to protect others," he added.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2005/03/04/949893-sun.html

Grow-op maniac kills 4 Mounties

Slaughter worst since Northwest Rebellion

By PAUL COWAN AND DOUG BEAZLEY, SUN MEDIA

A CRAZED gunman with a simmering hatred for cops shot four RCMP officers to death at a rural marijuana grow operation in Alberta yesterday, the country's worst police bloodbath in more than a century. Mounties exchanged shots with gunman James Roszko, 47, at a remote grow operation near the village of Rochfort Bridge north of Edmonton around 10 a.m. Four hours later officers moved in to find their fallen comrades -- two from Mayerthorpe and two from Whitecourt, and the gunman dead.

"The loss of four police officers in a single event is unprecedented. You would have to go back to 1885 to the Northwest Rebellion to see something of this scale," said devastated K-Division commanding officer Bill Sweeney, at the Mayerthorpe RCMP detachment yesterday afternoon.

Police sources said the grow operation north of Mayerthorpe was raided by the Edmonton Police Service and RCMP Green Team Wednesday night. Two officers were left behind on guard when the rest of the team left around 3 a.m. yesterday.

OFFICERS AMBUSHED

"They were shot and two more who came out to the farm later in the morning were ambushed," said one source.

"He just cut them down."

The gunman continued to fire as other officers arrived on scene.

The site was secured and air space over the area was closed as a safety precaution. Tactical resources were deployed, including the RCMP emergency response team, area police officers and about 20 soldiers.

Around 2 p.m. tactical officers made their way to a barn entrance, using a tractor as cover. Officers were later seen dragging what appeared to be a human body by the elbows.

Mounties then moved in en masse. Sources say Roszko had turned his gun on himself.

"The scene was not what officers were hoping to encounter," said RCMP spokesman Cpl. Wayne Oakes from the Mayerthorpe detachment last night.

The killings touched off shockwaves across Canada.

Last night, Prime Minister Paul Martin issued a statement expressing his condolences to the families of the fallen officers. "Canadians are shocked by this brutality, and join me in condemning the violent acts that brought about these deaths," he said.

Calling it an "unprecedented and unspeakable" loss, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli said yesterday's massacre of four Mounties must spark public debate on Canada's drug strategy.

Large-scale marijuana growing operations -- often booby-trapped and linked to organized crime -- have become a "plague" in Canadian communities and led to "incomprehensible" acts of violence, he said.

"The issue of grow-ops is not a Ma and Pa industry," he said.

"These are major, serious threats to our society and they are major, serious threats to the men and women in the front line who have to deal with them."

GOVERNMENT BILL

Zaccardelli wouldn't say if the Liberal government's proposed pot decriminalization bill will prompt grow-ops to flourish, but said he hoped there will be more talk of sentencing reform for perpetrators in the wake of the murders.

"Hopefully, this type of a tragedy will make us review and rethink and reflect and bring a perspective to some of these issues as Canadians, because we don't want anybody killed or harmed over these kinds of things," he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, whose Public Safety portfolio oversees the RCMP, said the government is open to revamping the decriminalization bill and is committed to ensuring police have adequate tools to fight the "scourge" of grow-ops.

McLellan stressed the government is upping the penalties for grow-ops to combat their "unacceptable growth."

"We are not in the business of legalizing marijuana. We are in the business of putting in place a new penalty regime for small amounts of marijuana," she said. "

Liberal MP Dan McTeague, a vocal opponent of his government's push to decriminalize pot, said yesterday's tragedy is a "wake-up call" that the bill must be scrapped.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2005/03/04/949894-sun.html



 
Fri, March 4, 2005


Portrait of a killer

'I Wouldn't Go in There Unless I Was Prepared for the Worst'

By LORI COOLICAN, PAUL COWAN, DAVID SANDS AND MAX MAUDIE, SUN MEDIA


To his father, he was "the devil." To old friends, he was a "freak" and a man they feared. Everyone seemed to agree that from an early age James Roszko was one dangerous guy, with one huge chip on his shoulder.

And he really didn't like the RCMP.

In his home south of Mayerthorpe, Alta., Roszko's father, Bill, was glued to his radio during the four-hour siege at the farm house near Rochfort Bridge. It ended after his son had slain four Mounties, then shot himself.

"He's been in trouble so many other times, I hate it," the senior Roszko said, telling reporters his 47-year-old son was "the devil.

"I don't want him as my son. He must be doped up. That's when he's very dangerous."

Bill Roszko said last night he had not heard that his son had been killed but he was horrified to think that Mounties were dead.

"That's a terrible thing," he said. "Horrible, horrible."

He last saw his son in 1994, when Jim would come by to help him with the hay on his farm, for pay, he said. At that time, he lived on a trailer on the property.

He believes his son broke off contact after a stint in jail in the mid-90s. "He just wandered out of my life. I think he was ashamed to see me."

MARITAL BREAKUP

Roszko, 80, said his son started misbehaving following his parents' marital breakup when he was about 12 years old.

"He had a lot of ability to do really well for himself when he wasn't on dope or hanging out with bad boys," the devastated father said.

Roszko said his son had three sisters and four brothers.

An old acquaintance who partied with Roszko when they were teenagers told Sun Media the cop-killer was notorious in the community.

"The guy was a freak. He's been in trouble ever since I've known him," said the man, who requested anonymity.

Local Mounties had trouble with Roszko "for years and years," the man said.

"It just amazes me that they would go in there like that. I know I wouldn't go in there unless I was prepared for the worst -- because that's all you could expect from this fellow. It doesn't surprise me if he shot himself, either. He wasn't the type of guy to give up."

Donna Toker, 62, also knew Roszko. He was a few years younger and "was kinda shy, that's all I can remember."

But things were a lot more memorable -- and a lot more dangerous -- when they next met.

Toker and her husband were at Roszko's property at the end of August 2004, enumerating for the provincial election. All four tires of their truck were punctured when they drove over a spike belt at the entrance to his property.

MILITARY COMPOUND

She said the place looked like a military compound, with guard dogs and two fences around the perimeter.

They didn't approach Roszko at the time, instead complaining to the RCMP. Roszko was due in Stony Plain court the next month on two counts of mischief related to people's tires getting flattened by the spike belt.

"I thought he might retaliate because I had heard when he gets mad, he gets really mad. I was afraid he'd come and shoot us or burn our house down," Toker said.

The spike belt was in use as far back as Aug. 4, 1999, when a group of Mounties went to Roszko's farm with a bailiff who had a warrant to seize two trucks and a herd of cattle from him as part of a lawsuit over an outstanding debt.

In an affidavit later filed with the court, the bailiff said Mounties warned her Roszko had a long criminal record and was "known to have booby-trapped land and used a spike belt to discourage visitors."

"It has been my experience that several people are quite afraid to give information about (Roszko) because even though I have reassured them that it is confidential, they are really afraid of retaliation of a violent sort from (him)," the bailiff's affidavit says.

Mounties who went to the farm with her were told to watch what they said over the airwaves because Roszko "had a scanner and listened to it constantly."

RCMP officers decided not to enter the property that day, the affidavit states.

FLAK JACKET

When the bailiff insisted on breaking through the gate and going onto the property to serve Roszko with papers by herself -- which she was entitled to do by court order -- Mounties loaned her a radio and flak jacket for her own safety, the document adds.

A local veterinarian, called to the property with RCMP officers and the bailiff in case cattle were seized that day, refused to go in at any time out of fear for his own safety because he lived nearby.

The bailiff eventually got onto the farm accompanied by Roszko's mother and stepfather. She found none of the property she was looking for, but spoke with Roszko.

"He constantly manipulated the conversation to blame the RCMP for all his troubles," she stated in the affidavit.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2005/03/04/949914-sun.html

Fri, March 4, 2005


Cop Killer Shot at Men Trespassing on His Land

By TONY BLAIS AND MAX MAUDIE, SUN MEDIA

COP SHOOTER Jim Roszko has had numerous run-ins with the law over the years, served time in prison at least once and was known as a man who liked weapons. The northwestern Alberta man also shot at people who came onto his rural property.

Lawyer Guy Fontaine, who said he represented Roszko on a litany of charges, wasn't surprised to hear Roszko went out in a police bloodbath.

"There was no love lost between Roszko and the RCMP."

In a 1993 disagreement with school officials over bus routes, Roszko faced a litany of charges, including unlawful confinement, pointing a firearm, assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon dangerous to the public and impersonating a police officer.

Rumours of child molestation at Roszko's residence plagued him too, Fontaine said. He remembered representing Roszko in at least one case of alleged child molestation, but could not remember the outcome.

And at least once, Fontaine said, the court had Roszco assessed to see if he was mentally fit to enter a plea in court. Fontaine said he was found fit for trial.

In court documents obtained yesterday, Sun Media learned Roszko, 46, faced charges for allegedly using a 12-gauge shotgun on two trespassers in 1999.

The charges were dismissed on Oct. 16, 2003.

However, details of the case are in a transcript of a preliminary hearing.

At the hearing, Bobby MacDougall testified he had gone to Roszko's farm with Nathan Watson around 3 a.m. on Sept. 9, 1999, to break some windows and steal gas.

After Watson refused to go on the property, MacDougall went alone and was confronted by a shotgun-toting Roszko, who made him lie on the ground and tied his hands behind his back.

MacDougall told Sun Media yesterday Roszko "just walked up behind me and put a gun to my head. He's just a different type of person."

Roszko forced MacDougall to return to the gate and call Watson, who was hiding, then tried to get them to go onto his property.

Court heard Roszko fired at Watson and pellets grazed his face and arms.

When Roszko hit MacDougall in the ribs with the barrel of the shotgun, Watson jumped on him and eventually got the gun, MacDougall said. He began hitting Roszko in the head with it while MacDougall punched and kicked him several times.

FLED IN TRUCK

The two men fled in Watson's truck with the shotgun and went to the local hospital, where they were later arrested and also charged. Watson testified Roszko once referred to Albertan Wiebo Ludwig, jailed for his role in oilpatch vandalism. Karman Willis was shot while joyriding on Ludwig's farm in 1999 and the crime remains unsolved.

Watson said Roszko suggested he could shoot people trespassing on his property and get away with it.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2005/03/04/949915-sun.html


 
This is a sad day indeed .  My condolences to the family of the fallen officers
 
It is very interesting to see how disinformation gets started in the media. Here, I think, we have almost a textbook example of frenzied speculation and ill-informed comment masquerading as fact. To see if you agree with me or not, go the CBC news website of this morning and play the 13.55 minute video of the press conference held at the Mayerthorpe RCMP detachment by the RCMP spokesman Cpl. Listen carefully to what he states as: a) known facts that can be released;   b) what is not known at all; and   c) what may be known but cannot be released. (Note also the Cpl's extreme frustration in dealing with media who do not listen to what he is saying...)

Then read some of the accounts provided by various media that purport to describe "what happened". IMHO the mad drive to outscoop each other, and "if it bleeds, it leads" are driving media to publish anything they can get their hands on.

Cheers.
 
A classic example of why we need better firepower and better armour for our officers.   When I do a drug kick, I take the biggest gun possible, that being our shotgun.   There is a product called CAP armour out there too (Ceramic Armour on Patrol) that you can throw on over top of your level II vest.   It gives you multiple round survivability from rifle rounds.   The damn thing should be issued, and every car should have a C8 or equivalent in it.   Many of us have been saying this for years.

I've got the next watch, brothers... sleep well.   10-8.....   :salute:
 
My deepest condolences to the families of the fallen officers. I can not believe anyone would do this to those who swear to serve and protect.
It is an outrage to see that someone would do something like this. Outrage would not equal the feelings this country is feeling right now. I only wish that stupid man had actually hung around to face the punishment for his crimes.   :threat:
If the government would open up their eyes and see what they have done to the security of this country. Over the years they have stripped our most important resource here at home of most of their powers, and they try to legalize pot...look at what happens. How many more officers must die before they will open their eyes and act upon true Canadian values.
To the officers, RIP. :salute:
:cdn:

Dan
 
First i will start with send my condolences to the families of the victims.  All of them.

Second to clear a few things up.

It was not a door kick, raid but a survallence op.  No Extra body armour at all.  The report was that they took fire from military style weaponry, assuming maybe an AK or some thing like that to take out all 4 in the shed. The other two that survived were outside the shed on a stolen auto complaint, were able to fire back and take cover.  The Military style weapon and EPCOR's lack of capability to turn the power off prompted the call for Military support. One of them was just posted in from Depot on or about the 14 of Feb. 

Third
I don't want to turn this into a slam page but a former liberal MP said that the cops would have never been shot if MJ was legalized.  I just want to wring the guy now. 


That is all i know for now some of crse is rumour but i have a good source at K div so I trust it. 

RIP BOTB :cdn:

gone but never forgotten
 
Well, this is all starting to piss me off, especially the politicians that are saying if pot was legal these officers would'nt have died. I swear if I hear anybody say that to my face, their gonna get punched. You know what could have prevented these deaths, if the fucking criminal had been put away for life when he did those 30 other serious crimes, including sexaul assault twice, impersonating a police officer, making death threats, and pointing weapons at people. These fucking liberal politicians are trying to make themselves look like the goddamn good guys, because their gonna legalize marijauna to prevent this from happening, they could have prevented it by putting this fucker away for life.

Sorry for the rant, I want to become a police officer, and I just get pissed off by people that try saying that if marijauna was legal this would have never happened.
 
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