'UNPRECEDENTED LOSS'

ROCHFORT BRIDGE -- A crazed gunman with a simmering hate for cops shot
four RCMP officers to death at a rural marijuana grow operation
yesterday, the country's worst police bloodbath in over a century.
Mounties exchanged shots with gunman James Roszko, 46, near the
village of Rochfort Bridge, 120 km northwest of Edmonton, around 10
a.m.

Four hours later they moved in to find their fallen comrades, three
from Mayerthorpe and one from Whitecourt, and the gunman dead.

Late last night, Sun Media confirmed with immediate family that one of
the dead was Const. Brock Myrol, 29, who was newly assigned to the
Mayerthorpe RCMP.

"The loss of four police officers in a single event is unprecedented.
You would have to go back to 1885 to the Northwest Rebellion to see
something of this scale," an ashen-faced K-division commanding officer
Bill Sweeney said at the Mayerthorpe RCMP detachment yesterday afternoon.

"This is a terrible shock for all of us and we are in a state of
mourning. Our hearts and prayers are with the families."

Police sources said the grow operation north of Mayerthorpe was raided
by the Edmonton Police Service and RCMP Green Team Wednesday night.

Two officers were left around 4:30 a.m. to secure the scene until
Edmonton RCMP auto theft unit members could arrive to search the
property for stolen goods. Just before 9 a.m., two additional officers
arrived.

The first two were shot and then "two more who came out to the farm
later in the morning were ambushed," said one source.

At 9:15 a.m., when two members of the auto theft team arrived, they
heard shots ring out inside a Quonset hut, a long, low, barn-like
metal structure.

The gunman stepped outside and opened fire on the auto theft members,
who returned fire. Sources say the killer, armed with a Heckler & Koch
.308 semi-automatic assault rifle, specially made for combat, then
retreated inside.

The site was secured and air space over the area was closed as a
precaution. Tactical resources were deployed, including the RCMP
emergency response teams, major crimes and GIS, as well as the city
police chopper Air-1. A total of about 35 officers swarmed the area.

Around 20 soldiers and three vehicles from the Edmonton Garrison were
also dispatched to the scene of the shootout, but it ended shortly
before they arrived.

Around 2 p.m., three dark-coloured SUVs drove onto the
property.

Roughly 10 minutes later, two officers wearing paramilitary fatigues
and bullet-proof vests appeared at a fence in front of the hut.

The Mounties had their rifles aimed at the inside of the
hut.

At the same time, another group of similarly equipped officers
approached the hut from the north side with a pair of police dogs -
out of the line of sight of a possible shooter in the structure.

The tactical officers waited another 10 or 15 minutes, and while
paying careful attention to an object on the ground, made their way to
the hut's entrance using a tractor as cover.

Two officers then appeared walking away from the hut, dragging what
appeared to be a human body by the elbows.

Mounties then moved in en masse.

"The scene was not what officers were hoping to encounter," RCMP
spokesman Cpl. Wayne Oakes said from the Mayerthorpe detachment last
night.

One of the three Mayerthorpe officers - there are 10 based at the
detachment - had only been on the job for three weeks, said a source.

STARS air ambulance landed a helicopter near the site but out of rifle
range. When RCMP announced the scene had been secured, the chopper
flew to the farm.

"We were informed by the RCMP we were not required and were stood
down," said STARS spokesman Cam Bell.

Officials later said Roszko was found with a self-inflicted fatal
gunshot wound.