'We're heavily out-armed': Mounties recall confused response to Moncton shooting

MONCTON, N.B. -- A hushed Moncton courtroom heard the alarmed voice Wednesday of a senior Mountie calling for help as "heavily out-armed" officers tried to track a gunman out to assassinate police.

"We're going to need everything we've got," Cpl. Peter MacLean pleaded in a June 4, 2014, recording played at the RCMP's Labour Code trial. "We're heavily out-armed here."

Then, to other officers, MacLean radioed: "Keep cover guys. He's got long guns. Ours are too short for him. We don't have the artillery for this."

MacLean testified Wednesday that officers "didn't have anything to match" Justin Bourque's semi-automatic rifle in the Moncton massacre, which left three Mounties dead and two others wounded.

MacLean was one of three responding RCMP officers who took the stand Wednesday in Moncton provincial court.

They described a chaotic response to the shooting spree with scarce resources -- two officers argued over a hard-body armour suit, insisting the other take it for the sake of her children -- broken communication and general lack of co-ordination.

The RCMP is accused of failing to provide members and supervisors with the appropriate information, instruction, equipment and training in an active-shooter event.

Witnesses said Wednesday reports of a camouflaged man carrying two long guns initially didn't raise too much alarm. Codiac RCMP often received calls about misguided hunters or kids carrying realistic toy guns, they said.

As soon as reports of live gunfire came in, Cpl. Jacques Cloutier, who was acting sergeant for the detachment while the command post was unfilled, testified that he sent everyone in the office to the scene.

The chatter over the radio became more "active," Cloutier said, so he asked for an update. An officer called him to say that Const. Fabrice Gevaudan "was gone."

"I asked ... 'Tell me, well, where did he go?' and I realized what he meant," Cloutier told the court. "For five seconds, I was kind of numb."

MacLean told the court that he and another officer "hopscotched" through the residential neighbourhood -- one providing cover, while the other darted through a backyard -- trying to conceal themselves as they searched for the shooter.

MacLean had lost his radio during the pursuit, so he took Gevaudan's as officers futilely tried to revive him, he said.

He said the radio traffic was frantic and full of "conflicting" information. Officers from other detachments couldn't even access the channel, he said.

Volleys of shots rang out in quick succession, MacLean said, leading him to question whether the shooter was carrying an automatic weapon.

MacLean pleaded for back-up from other detachments, an emergency response team and air support.

Another witness, Const. Martine Benoit, testified that she couldn't recall anyone being in charge as confused officers scrambled to respond to unverified sightings of the shooter.

Benoit told the court that she stood alone in a parking lot "waiting to be shot again" not long after Bourque fired multiple rounds into her police cruiser, sending smoke billowing from her engine.

"It was kind of a chaos situation," Benoit said. "It was one shot after the other."

She testified that another officer, Const. Eric Dubois, came to her aid and they took cover behind his car. As the gunfire resumed, Dubois told her that Gevaudan had died, said Benoit.

"There was bullets flying everywhere." she said. "(Dubois) was upset, obviously. We had just lost a member and he wanted to get the suspect."

Dubois kept popping up from behind the car to get a better eye on Bourque. Benoit said she told him to get down, then she saw blood running down his arm.

Dubois fled to the Hildegard Fire Station, where officers who had escaped the line of fire set up a staging area. Benoit said she was too afraid to go out in the open, but another officer came to escort her to the station.

"I don't recall that anyone was in charge at that point," she said. "There was a lot of members trying to figure out what they needed to do."

Benoit said Cpl. Lisa Whittington urged her to take her hard-body armour, or HBA, but she resisted.

"We were arguing on who was going to take the HBA that they had there," Benoit recounted. "She says, 'Well, you have kids.' And I said, 'Well you have kids too."'

Eventually, Benoit put on the equipment.

Over the radio, Benoit said she heard that the shooter had been spotted near Ayer Avenue and Preston Crescent, about 2.5 kilometres away from where the last shooting took place.

Benoit told the court that she questioned how the shooter could have moved so quickly, but she jumped into another police cruiser and drove to the scene.

Court heard that she stood alone in a school parking lot, waiting for instructions from dispatch as night fell.

"I was scared because I didn't know where he (the shooter) was," she said. "I was waiting to be shot again."

Benoit said she was briefly joined by another officer, but then another call came in, and they had to leave. Again, Benoit was alone, she said.

Bourque, who was targeting police in an effort to start an anti-government rebellion, was caught after a 28-hour manhunt. He was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 75 years after pleading guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.