By Abimbola Ogunnaike
An unexpected happened on Thursday. 16 March, 2023 in Edmonton, Canada as a 16-year-old boy allegedly shot his mother with a gun, killed two on-duty police officers before taking his own life.
Media reports cited local police and government officials as saying that the male suspect shot and wounded his mother at an apartment in Edmonton in Alberta province following a family dispute.
After two patrol officers arrived at the scene, he shot them dead.
Edmonton Police Service Chief, Dale McFee said the officers, Travis Jordan, 35 and Brett Ryan, 30, were responding to a call from a woman about a “family dispute.
“(They) went inside the building, approached the suite, and were shot by a young male suspect”.
McFee told reporters that the officers had not had a chance to return fire.
“At this time, all indications are they did not have a chance to discharge their firearms.”
McFee said other officers sent to the apartment later found the assailant dead apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The woman, he added, was in serious but stable condition.
In a condolence message, Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau tweeted his support for the slain officers’ families and colleagues.
“Every day, police officers put themselves in harm’s way to keep people safe. The news that two Edmonton police officers have been killed in the line of duty reminds us of that reality,” Trudeau wrote on his Twitter page.
Edmonton, with a population of just over one million, is the second-largest city in the province of Alberta and is usually considered a peaceful city.
Thursday’s killings are the first for the city police since 2015 when a constable was shot numerous times while using a battering ram to enter a residence.
The latest deaths bring the number of officers killed in the line of duty across the country to seven since September, according to the Canadian Police Association’s online memorial.
There was one death in 2019, three in 2020 and two in 2021. That number increased to five last year.
Responding to a domestic dispute is the second most deadly set of circumstances for police officers in the country, according to an analysis of police deaths up to 2009 conducted by Statistics Canada.
