'SADDENED BEYOND WORDS'

Premier Ralph Klein said he was "saddened beyond words" by yesterday's
shootings, and called the losses to the officers' families
"immeasurable." "Immeasurable, too, is the sympathy and respect that
all Albertans feel for the four lost officers and for those who knew
them and loved them. These four officers gave their lives for the most
noble of causes: upholding the law and maintaining the peace of their
community.

"That such unspeakable tragedy should befall them weighs heavy on the
hearts of all Albertans. It shocks us that bravery is felled by
violence. It disturbs us that courage is silenced by anger."

Klein said he was surprised and saddened that such a tragedy would
occur in the quiet farming community of Rochfort Bridge, about 120 km
northwest of Edmonton.

"Maybe it says something about how the criminal mind is changing ...
to move from big cities so perhaps they won't be noticed as much as
they would in a larger centre," he said.

When asked what he'd tell other police officers, Solicitor General
Harvey Cenaiko, a longtime police officer himself in Calgary,
suggested they find comfort in family.

"I'm going to tell them they should be home with their spouses and
children. That's what they need to do." Cenaiko added that he and
K-Division commanding officer Bill Sweeney were to meet with the
families of the slain officers.

"This issue was senseless in the fact that four officers were killed
with regard to a grow operation," he said. "(It) goes to the
seriousness of the fact that organized crime, illegal cultivation of
marijuana or the illegal production of crystal meth is all around us
in the province."