DEAD OFFICER MOURNED BY LOCAL RESIDENTS

One of the RCMP officers gunned down near Mayorthorpe, Alta., is
remembered as kind and fun-loving by a Prince George woman who knew
him through her job and the school her children attended.

"He was just so kind-hearted, a real gentle spirit, but also fun, he
would come up with a joke," Lynn Giese said of Peter Christopher
Schiemann, 25, one of four officers killed Thursday when a raid on a
marijuana grow up went awry. "He was just fun to be with."

Giese was a church secretary when Schiemann's father, Don, was a
pastor at St. Matthew Church in Stony Plain, Alta., just outside
Edmonton. As well, her two children attended the church's school at
about the same time he did.

"It was a small school, probably 150 kids from Grades K to 9, so they
all knew each other," she said.

Giese and her husband Greg moved to Prince George in 1992 and are
members of the Zion Lutheran Church congregation, while their son and
daughter both live in Edmonton.

But they kept in contact with the Schiemanns, exchanging Christmas
cards every year and paying visits whenever they were in Edmonton.

Giese said Peter had long wanted to be a Mountie and knew he had been
in Mayorthorpe since at least 2003.

"That was his chosen profession, that's what he was always aiming
for," she said. "He wanted to be on the force."

The incident occured on a farm just outside Mayorthorpe, a small
farming community of 1,600 people about 130 kilometres northwest of
Edmonton. The farm's owner, James Roszko, 46, who was also found dead,
has been identified as the shooter who killed the four officers.

Schiemann was also known to Zion Lutheran Church pastor Alan Visser.
Peter's father is now the district president for the Lutheran Church
of Canada's Alberta-British Columbia District.

Schiemann's office is based in Edmonton, but Visser said he's paid
visits to Prince George as part of his job. As well, Visser said Peter
Schiemann was heavily involved in getting a young adult ministry
started in the district before he joined the RCMP.

"Like everybody else, I have questions about how it happened, but I
guess the thing that surprised me the most is how much it has
personally affected me even before I knew Peter was one of them," he
said.

"I'm surprised at the intensity of it, of my reaction. I'm trained not
to be extremely emotional in situations like this and I'm surprised at
how close this has brought me to tears."