A NATION MOURNS OFFICERS

Canada Will Always Remember

ROCHFORT BRIDGE, Alta. -- A nation mourned Friday, and with the grief
and tears came many questions -- some to be answered by investigators
combing a crime scene in rural Alberta, and some by politicians
already discussing new laws to deal with drugs and violence.

One of the four police officers killed Thursday was valedictorian of
his RCMP graduating class -- just one month ago.

Another was a young father, looking forward to the birth of his second
child.

One had a twin brother who is also a member of the force; both were
expert marksmen who wore special badges on their uniforms.

The fourth, and youngest, was the son of a Lutheran minister and a
schoolteacher.

The man who murdered them, and died shortly afterwards, was a
psychopath who owned automatic weapons and was aching for the chance
to use them, his brother said.

"Why in the hell would they ever send those cops down there like
that?" said George Roszko of Whitecourt, who is four years older than
his estranged brother James. "What in the hell were they thinking,
that they were going on a picnic? I mean, everybody knew him. The
tragedy is that every community has some kind of a violent,
psychopathic criminal mind living there, but when you know that, what
are you doing, sending the boys out on a picnic?"

Families of the dead constables -- Peter Christopher Schiemann,
Anthony Fitzgerald Orion Gordon, Lionide Nicholas Johnston and
Outlook-born Brock Warren Myrol -- spoke Friday about their pride and
their pain. But the Myrol family also pointed fingers.

"It is time that our government takes a stand on evil," Colleen Myrol,
the mother of Const. Myrol, said in statement she read to reporters.
"The man who murdered our son and brother was a person who was deeply
disturbed and ill.

"It is our duty as Canadians to stop and think how we are raising our
children. It is time to teach honour of our country. Brock knew that."

The family asked the prime minister to make changes to the laws to
"give the courts real power," and "give the power back to the police."

Police offered few details of what happened Thursday morning on the
farm near Rochfort Bridge, about 110 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
What is known is that RCMP officers went to a farm owned by James
Roszko on Wednesday to assist a sheriff in serving a court order to
seize some property. While there, police found evidence of a marijuana
grow operation and stolen goods.

Two junior officers were left at the farm overnight to guard the
scene. Two others arrived Thursday morning and the four went inside a
large, metal hut in the farmyard.

At 9:15 a.m., police say, two members of the Edmonton RCMP auto theft
unit arrived at the farm. As they stepped from their police car, they
heard gunshots inside the hut. One officer returned fire, and they
retreated to the road and called for back up. More than four hours
later, when an RCMP tactical team stormed the Quonset hut, they found
the dead bodies of the four officers and the gunman.

Roszko killed the four men with what police called a "rapid-fire,
high-powered rifle."

Cpl. Wayne Oakes said the soft body armour the officers wore wasn't
heavy enough to stop a high-calibre bullet.

The massive investigation now centres on several key questions, Oakes
said.

Police are waiting for autopsy results and forensics tests to tell
them how Roszko and the officers died.

A key question, Oakes said, is: "How did (Roszko) get back on to the
property."

Roszko's family -- he had three sisters, four brothers and one
step-brother -- was not a close one. Members split after James was
convicted of sexual assault. One side supported the man the family
called Jimmy, the other side wanted nothing to do with him.

Roszko's estranged sister Marion and brother-in-law Tim White dropped
off flowers for the slain officers Friday at the Mayerthorpe RCMP station.

"Our greatest regrets go out to the cops and their families," Tim
White said. "It's brutal. They are all owed an apology."

When Roszko's estranged younger brother Douglas heard about Thursday's
shooting, he was angry at the RCMP, said George Roszko.

While Douglas, a logger in nearby Whitecourt, hated some things about
his brother Jimmy, he also idolized him. After he heard his brother
was dead, Douglas told his common-on-law wife, Connie, that he was
going to Mayerthorpe to take action, George Roszko said.

Douglas got in his truck and drove down the highway to the crime
scene, outside of Mayerthorpe. They decided to alert police and their
brother was stopped and arrested.

George said James had automatic weapons hidden on his
farm.

The four officers killed Thursday were constables, all young men.
Three were from the Mayerthorpe detachment a few miles from Roszko's
farm. The fourth was from the nearby Whitecourt detachment.

Const. Julie Latal of the Mayerthorpe RCMP was at the Roszko farm on
Wednesday, when she escorted a man who was delivering a civil order to
the farm concerning stolen property. The man had requested RCMP
assistance, given Roszko's dangerous reputation.

Roszko was nowhere to be seen, Latal said. "He'd bolted."

Latal said officers found a marijuana grow operation in the farm's
Quonset hut, which prompted the need for a search warrant.

Once that search warrant was delivered, police found stolen property.
While the grow operation was investigated and scrutinized on Wednesday
night, the stolen property investigation was to take place Thursday
morning.

When Latal left the scene, she left a word of warning about the man
police were dealing with.

"When I went, I told the boys to make sure everything's clear, because
he's watching us," Latal said of Roszko.