A VERY PERSONAL TRAGEDY

On The Set Of A TV Movie About The 05 Shootings Of Four RCMP Officers
In Alberta, Dawn Walton Talks To Those Who Knew Them Best -- And Now
Have Helped To Tell Their Tale

COCHRANE, ALTA. -- RCMP Corporal Lee Johnston looks confident in a
green camouflage uniform, a high-powered rifle in his hands, as he
moves in on a killer.

Johnston and his fellow Emergency Response Team officers pass by the
body of a Mountie, face down in the dirt, as they breach the door to
the Quonset hut where their suspect is holed up. They raise their
weapons, and follow commands to spread out in a systematic search for
signs of life -- and in order to protect their own.

Johnston has performed this tactical manoeuvre before, but never has
an assignment been as gut-wrenching as today's. The 34-year-old is
playing an extra in To Serve and Protect: Tragedy at Mayerthorpe, a
made-for-TV movie about the death of his twin brother, Leo, and three
other Mounties at the hands of 46-year-old James Roszko, a local
brute with a documented distaste for the law.

Johnston's 67-year-old mother, Grace, watches as the cameras roll,
and makes a barely audible, heartbreaking plea, as if the
re-enactment of her son's murder is actually unfolding for the first
time.

"Where are you, you son of a bitch?" she whispers.

The director yells "Cut."

Constables Leo Johnston, 32, Anthony Gordon, 28, Brock Myrol, 29, and
Peter Schiemann, 25, were shot to death on March 3, 2005, during a
melee on Roszko's farm northwest of Edmonton. When they were
ambushed, the officers had been guarding stolen vehicle parts and a
marijuana grow-op discovered in the Quonset. Roszko later turned a
gun on himself.

"A couple of friends have asked me why I would want to take part,"
says Johnston, now an RCMP tactical trainer in Ottawa. "I don't have
an answer. I just wanted to."

Filming wrapped up this week at various locations outside Calgary.
CTV plans to broadcast the film in its 2007-08 lineup.

At first, even the idea of making the movie was a tough sell. The
constables' families balked when they heard about a script in the
works a year ago. They said it was too soon, too painful, that the
official investigation was still under way. (The criminal probe
continues today.)

But, satisfied the endeavour was a worthwhile one, acclaimed
screenwriter Andrew Wreggitt (Shades of Black: The Conrad Black Story
and One Dead Indian) went to work convincing those with fresh
heartache to get on board. Helping him were producers Tom Cox and
Jordy Randall, whose other collaborations include such notable
feature films as Brokeback Mountain and the upcoming Brad Pitt epic,
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Eventually, the families gave their blessing. And over the past
month, some have made a pilgrimage to the set.

Now, all those involved have an emotional stake in the project, whose
budget is just over $4-million."I think it will be hard for anybody
to watch," says Const. Myrol's mother, Colleen, who travelled to the
set from Red Deer, Alta., with her husband, Keith.

"The best way I guess I could describe it is, it's a labour of love.
That's really the feeling Keith and I came back with, and shared with
our family: 'We wish you could have been there.' You bet it was raw
emotion. . . . I couldn't watch for too long."

On the set, the ghosts of Mayerthorpe never seem far.

Grace Johnston wears a sweatshirt emblazoned with the letters RCMP.
She has RCMP pins affixed to her purse. An RCMP pendant hangs from a
necklace, and tiny handcuffs dangle from her ears. When she arrives
at the location that is standing in for Roszko's farm, she gasps. A
rolling country road leading to the property is blocked off by police
cars with lights flashing. There's a squad car with a bullet hole
through its windshield parked not far from the Quonset; a pickup
truck sits with its door ajar.

Sought-after production crew who would never take on a project of
this modest size asked to be involved. Almost every crew member's
lapel sports a pin that says "We remember" under four tiny Stetsons.
At one point, a soundman quietly weeps, recalling a time the justice
system failed his own family.

The man who owns the property that is doubling as Roszko's ramshackle
farm says he initially turned down inquiries from location scouts.
"It's just too sad," he remembers saying at the time, but adds that
he changed his mind about allowing filming when he received word that
the widows and parents had co-operated.

Real-life Mounties, city police, customs officers and those with
military backgrounds offered to stand in as police officers to give
the picture added heft. One Mountie, now nearing retirement, still
gets teary when he talks about the woman who showed up at the Airdrie
detachment, just north of Calgary, with her two young children the
day after the shootings. They had emptied their piggy banks, handed
him two boxes of Timbits, and said they were sorry.

"I just wanted to be here for my brothers," says the man, now clad in
camouflage, and with a rifle slung around his neck, waiting to be
called into action. "They would be here for me."

For the stars, meanwhile, this has not been just another month-long job.

"It was very sobering to meet Reverend [Don] Schiemann," says Brian
Markinson, who plays Roszko in the film, the day after Const.
Schiemann's father toured the set. "The first thing he said to me was
'I'm sorry you have to play this guy.' "

With 100 television and film credits under his belt, Markinson has
portrayed some loathsome characters, including a father who molested
and murdered his son on NYPD Blue; but he says it's tough to bring to
life the man most Canadians know from a single, terrifying act and a
lone black-and-white photograph, his eyes sunken and fixed on the camera.

"I do feel a responsibility," says Markinson, who is American but
lives in Vancouver with his Canadian wife and children. "There's
probably going to be a lot of Canadian people watching this film.
They're going to be fascinated, but the .001 per cent of them who had
any dealing with this man, we want them to look at it and go, 'Yep.' "

In preparation for the suicide scene, Markinson has had fake blood
smeared on his jacket and pants. Wool socks cover his boots, a
hunter's trick used to muffle sounds and hide tracks, which Roszko
employed that day.

He introduces himself to the Johnstons.

"You're not him," Grace says.

"I'm not him. I wanted you to see that," he replies.

She collapses in his arms, sobbing.

Henry Czerny, who has acted opposite Tom Cruise in Mission:
Impossible and Harrison Ford in Clear and Present Danger, plays the
protagonist, Cpl. Alex Stanton, a fictional character who embodies
RCMP frustration and righteousness.

He, too, approaches Grace Johnston between takes.

"It's an honour," he says. "It must be very haunting for you."

"Thank you," she says simply.

They linger in the silence.

The Toronto-born actor ,who is based in Los Angeles, admits over
lunch that he was unfamiliar with the shootings in Mayerthorpe until
he read the movie's script.. Now, he feels what he calls a "profound
responsibility" -- to Canadians, to the people of Mayerthorpe and,
particularly, to the families -- to shed light on what led to the killings.

"I hope, on some level, they understand what it feels like to be Jim
Roskzo," he says.

He asks me, as a reporter who covered the shootings, about this man
who was so angry, so isolated, and yet so deft at working the system.
We talk about Roszko's life in a macho, pickup-truck town. We discuss
his predilection for young men, his stint in prison for molesting a
boy, and the time he was charged with terrorizing a male teenager
whom he later scared out of testifying.

"The unfathomable shock and hurt that those people are still
suffering is something I'm not sure you can put on film," Czerny
says. "You can get close to it."

Director Ken Girotti, who has worked on such television shows as 24
and Rescue Me, moves into the Quonset and makes some suggestions to
adjust the shot. Nearby, Lee Johnston mingles with the other extras.
He was serving at the RCMP's Surrey, B.C., detachment when his
brother, older by 9 minutes, was murdered. He felt helpless at the
time, he says, but now he has the chance to do something for Leo.

What was he thinking as he stormed that Quonset hut for the cameras?
Is this what he expected? "It's alright," he says, "I think it's a
lot harder on mom. It takes her back to that day, like she's watching
it happen before her eyes."