656 replies to this topic

[todd]

Yes. Considering almost all the team was shot. And they are supposed to be the tactical experts.

Maybe they could have us sit in on some of the training.

[Victoria Watcher]

Chief says Saanich officers don't feel safe because of lack of 'bodies responding to calls'

Chief Dean Duthie says there have been a number of early retirements and 10 resignations since six police officers were shot outside a Shelbourne Street bank last summer

https://www.timescol...o-calls-7930116

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 December 2023 - 10:32 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Saanich chief issues 86 awards to police, others for work on bank shootout

Officers from several departments faced armed suspects June 28, 2022

https://www.vicnews....hootout-7313021




86 awards.


There should be 86 investigations of how badly police handled this. Two young men dead, no motive ever discovered. Six officers shot. At least one shot by friendly fire.

Nobody even knows who fired first.

Maybe when a police bullet nearly kills a police officer there should be an investigation into what went wrong.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 February 2024 - 10:37 PM.

[pontcanna]

Officer shot in deadly B.C. bank shootout details the attack 2 years later

June 13, 2024

Two years after a deadly gun battle between police and a pair of heavily armed assailants stunned the community of Saanich, B.C., one of the officers who was critically injured in the shootout is speaking about it publicly for the first time.

Steven Reichert

 

Saanich police Const. Steven Reichert and six other members of the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team spent the morning of June 28, 2022, running a security operation for a Victoria police surveillance unit as it gathered intelligence for a drug-trafficking investigation.

"We had six ERT operators in the back of our covert van and our team leader who was the driver," Reichert told CTV News on Friday.

Just after 11 a.m., the team leader got a text message from an operations commander, telling the unit to switch their radios to the Saanich police channel for "some sort of an armed robbery or some sort of a firearms call," the seven-year veteran of the GVERT said.

"We learned that there was two suspects," he recalled. "We heard information they were both in possession of long rifles and they were both wearing balaclavas."

The van began rolling north out of Victoria and into Saanich.

The team listened to the first patrol officers on scene as they tried to establish a perimeter and control traffic outside the Bank of Montreal branch on Shelbourne Street.

Moments earlier, 22-year-old brothers Mathew and Isaac Auchterlonie had driven their car loaded with weapons and explosives into the bank parking lot and entered the building wearing windbreakers over olive-green body armour, each carrying an SKS rifle with an extended magazine.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reichert would spend the next 10 months in a wheelchair before slowly training his legs to walk again. He would also embark on a significant psychological recovery.

Reichert has since returned to work with the GVERT but still has one more surgery ahead of him.

Six officers were ultimately injured in the shootout. Many more have stayed home on stress leave.

The Saanich police chief says three of his department's officers remain off-duty two years later.

"The injuries and the scars that are left are not gone," Duthie said. "Everybody can process, and does process, trauma in different ways at different speeds."

 

More: https://bc.ctvnews.c...later-1.6923473

 

[pontcanna]

Just feel very fortunate’: VicPD officer describes harrowing Saanich bank shootout, life afterwards

VicPD Staff Sgt. John Musicco speaks to reporters on June 27, 2024

 

Nearly two years after a harrowing bank shootout rocked the Saanich community, a police officer who helped lead the dramatic response is sharing his account of the day.

On June 28, 2022, twin brothers Isaac and Mathew Auchterlonie, 22, entered the Bank of Montreal branch along Shelbourne Street armed with SKS semi-automatic rifles and wearing body armour and balaclavas.

Minutes later, the pair engaged in a level of violence unheard of for Vancouver Island, shooting six police officers before being fatally shot themselves.

Twenty-two people were inside the bank at the time. Of the six officers that were injured, three suffered catastrophic injuries, but all survived.

Staff Sgt. John Musicco was the team leader of the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team (GVERT) when the call came in that two gunmen had taken hostages at the Bank of Montreal.

By chance, the GVERT tactical unit was nearby on an unrelated call, and they were dispatched to the bank, which was just minutes away.

Seven members of the GVERT team, including Musicco, were inside an unmarked police van as they approached the bank. The staff sergeant described the lead-up as tense, with many unknowns.

“So en route what I’m able to do is just listen to the radio and the broadcast from the dispatchers, from the police witnesses, and from some of the complainants that would go through the dispatcher,” he said.

“We get information that there are two suspects that have entered the bank with innocent people inside, that they have balaclavas on, that they’re armed with firearms as well,” he said.

“So that in itself is kind of an outside the norm call for service and that is what then warrants our response.”

With limited information, Musicco decided to drive the unmarked police van around the bank to see if they could look inside.

Within 60 seconds of the drive-by, the GVERT team would be told that the gunmen were leaving the building.

 

More: https://www.cheknews...rwards-1211690/

[max.bravo]

So the officer (Const. Musicco) driving the van decided to drive around the building into the front parking lot to confront the robbers. Sounds like he didn’t expect to drive right into a firefight.

He says he shot at both suspects through the windshield of the van, but it’s not clear if he killed them, or if another officer did. 6 of the 7 officers in the van were hit by gunfire.

Maybe another strategy would’ve been better.

It looks like he’s the same VicPD officer who fatally shot a young man who’d broken into his mother’s house in 2014. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4116673

You can hear him discuss the 2014 incident on this podcast https://www.everand....-14-year-vetera

Edited by max.bravo, 27 June 2024 - 10:38 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

There were no "hostages" as the article keeps stating.

[Victoria Watcher]

He says he shot at both suspects through the windshield of the van, but it’s not clear if he killed them, or if another officer did. 6 of the 7 officers in the van were hit by gunfire.

Maybe another strategy would’ve been better.

 

Yes, in hindsight, another strategy woud almost certainly have been better.

 

It's not a success if 6 out of of 7 officers are shot.  At least one shot by their own side.

[Victoria Watcher]

Maybe another strategy would’ve been better.

 

 

 

Like maybe one that was developed over more than 60 seconds?

 

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...hooting-9149514

 

 

 

 

“I have 60 seconds worth of time to develop a plan,” he recalled.

 

Officers in the van had been at another incident several kilometres away and had to rapidly change their mindset to face the new challenge, relying on years of intensive training. Musicco has spent 20 years as a police officer and 12 with the Emergency Response Team.

 

“My mission at that stage is to save those hostages,” Musicco said. The secondary mission was to arrest the suspects.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 June 2024 - 03:51 AM.

[todd]

^"The information we had was the two suspects were inside, we had a number of civilians, and so around that time of our arrival, the call was classified as a hostage-taking,"

https://bc.ctvnews.c...later-1.6923473

[pontcanna]

Two years later, neighbours recall deadly gun battle outside Saanich bank

Brothers Mathew and Isaac Auchterlonie, both 22 and each carrying a legally purchased SKS semi-automatic rifle, entered the bank and held 22 customers and staff inside.

A pane of glass shattered by a bullet framed and mounted near the front door of Squeaky’s Laundromat is a daily reminder of the deadly gunfight that took place two years ago today on the other side of Shelbourne Street.

 

 

The bullet blasted through a window near the cash register and came to a stop inside a folded duvet. It was dug out later by police investigators.

Business owner Edward Park and his family moved to Canada from South Korea in 2000, choosing Victoria because it was a quiet, safe place.

He loves the capital region still, saying he will never leave.

When the shooting started, Park, who had done compulsory military training in South Korea, immediately recognized the sound of gunfire.

“I told all my employees to lay down.”

But even with his training, watching events unfold was far beyond Park’s own experience.

“It was such a terrible tragedy … it was a kind of war.”

Some employees were startled a few days later by the sound of fireworks — even when expecting them — on Canada Day, Park said. “They were so shocked. They could not even sleep because it was a big trauma.”

As time passes, the event is something Park and others can talk about without becoming overwhelmed with emotion. However, if a loud blast occurs unexpectedly, it stirs up the memory of the shooting, he said.
 

More: https://www.timescol...ch-bank-9148141

[amor de cosmos]

45-minute documentary https://www.youtube....h?v=1FHt6Vr-es8

via https://www.victoria...-bank-shooting/

[Sparky]

^ Boy, that 45 minute video was worth every second. Thanks for that amor.

[Victoria Watcher]

5 or 6 cops were shot. At least 1 by their own side. Luckily none died.

No investigation or inquest in police tactics?

No review to ensure that cops don’t shoot each other next time?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 July 2024 - 08:00 AM.

[todd]

You’re asking were they heroes or were these workplace accidents?

Edited by todd, 06 July 2024 - 10:09 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

I’m asking for a review. In no circumstances should the vast majority of responding officers be shot - including by their own side.

If most of the responding officers are shot, you have done the procedure entirely wrong.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 July 2024 - 10:25 AM.

[todd]

^Do I need to post the Seinfeld dry cleaner episode?


https://youtu.be/bZ6...ewatTNKxq7Gg-5-