Early that January I was at the Hamlet Office, having a short meeting with the Mayor when my partner Eric called to say that we had a call and that I needed to come back to the office right away. The call seemed straight forward enough, a youth, three weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday, had called the office to say he’d taken a bunch of pills and needed help. Fortunately immediately after that call, Eric had received a second. The second call came from a friend of the youth’s, who called to warn us that the youth was actually waiting for us with a rifle.
In an isolated community this size you soon know everyone you police. It is part of the appeal of policing a community of this size. Knowing everyone has both advantages and drawbacks, but I firmly believe that there are many more advantages. But when Eric filled me in on the details, I didn’t recognize the name. Eric did know the guy, a youth from his home town who was here in open custody. Three weeks shy of turning adult, he had had extensive experience in the criminal justice system already. After the incident I recognized him as a new face in town, our only contact was to nod hello on the rare occasions we had met.
The house he was living in, and where he was now holed up waiting for us, was up the hill from the hamlet. At the time you could only approach from below, the road dead ending farther up. There was no road access from the other side, and the house had a commanding view of our approach.
Eric and I pulled to a stop about 150 metres down from the house, near one of the churches in town. As you can well imagine, police communications in the arctic weren’t high tech at the time. We had a radio that we could use locally, and an interface on it, so we could use the phone through the radio. Before leaving the office I had called down to our HQ and let them briefly know what was going on. Then when we had stopped, I phoned the house where this guy was holed up, and apart from his screaming “where are you?” and swearing at us, didn’t have much luck talking to him. Before long, communications would get worse.
Deciding we needed to get on the other side of the house also, Eric walked back to the office and picked up one of the snow machines. He then skidooed the long way around, and came up to the house next to the residence. With the help of the owners he set up shop in a washroom next to the house where he was able to keep an eye on the residence from a concealed position. I meanwhile had stayed where I was, and as it was an exposed position (I really should have been somewhere else) I slumped down in the seat. I had just phoned HQ to update them. They had our containment team on standby and an Emergency Response Team in Ottawa mustering. Then two things happened. The phone link for our radios died, and he began shooting at me.
To be honest, I didn’t realize it at first. In the truck the gun’s report sounded like stones hitting plastic. I looked out the side window and a snowmobile was driving by about 20 metres away, everyone on it was looking at me. I thought “Are they throwing rock’s at me?” And then the light came on.
I radioed to Eric that I thought I was being shot at, and backed down the road and behind the Hamlet. There were no more shots and I moved to a vantage point near the Hamlet office. Eric hadn’t heard any shots, the house was in darkness, and I, after checking for bullet holes in the truck, got back in, and drove to the office. I phoned HQ, who now put the containment and emergency response teams in motion, and quickly played with the radio interface, getting working again. I then went back to my vantage point near the church.
Moments later, a truck coming down from the other side, pulled into the driveway of the house, which was between it and the house Eric was in. Almost instantly the truck backed out, and Eric radioed that there had been two shot fired through the window. In the truck was one of the sons of the house’s owner, and he told me that someone was shooting and had shot out his dad’s window. I explained to him what we knew was going on, and asked him to stay away. When it had become clear that we were dealing with a barricaded armed person, we had contacted the community radio and asked them to have people stay away, now it was clear we needed to do more.
I once again called HQ, to let them know that shots had indeed been fired and was half way through the call when the phone link died for good. Then the shooting started again, I started backing away to again get behind the cover of the Hamlet office. There were four or five shots, and the last one made a loud crack…
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Can’t wait for the next episode!