A 13-year Bowden Institution correctional officer was fined more than $3,000 after police found a cache of assorted firearms and other weapons in his vehicle in May.
Ryan Norman, 38, a Correctional Services of Canada officer, pleaded guilty in Red Deer provincial court on Wednesday to various firearm and restricted weapon offences.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of contravening regulations under the Firearms Act respecting the storage, handling, and transportation of firearms and restricted weapons and was fined $500 for each of those counts.
He was also fined $500 on each of three counts of unauthorized possession of a prohibited firearm. Norman was further fined $500 for altering, defacing or removing a serial number on a firearm.
Norman was placed on 12 months probation and fined a total of $3,450 including surcharges.
Court heard that Norman was stopped by police with various firearms in his vehicle, some of which seemed improperly secured. He was coming back from a shooting range when stopped on May 21 near Innisfail. Also seized were pepper spray, firearm magazines and a electroshock gun known as a Taser.
“I am told that he was properly in possession of these weapons and they were registered,” said Dave Inglis, defence lawyer for Norman.
One single piece of a shotgun had its serial number scratched off, but Norman hadn’t removed that number, Inglis said. It was already like that when he bought it, court heard.
Some of the weapons were found in a locked canopy, with an alarm system, within his vehicle. While these items were not properly secured, he had made some efforts as the weapons were being taken from the range to his house, said Inglis.
“We have a 13-year employee who knows nothing else but protecting federal penitentiaries,” said Inglis. “It’s not as insidious as it appears. By the most part, he was trying to abide by the (Firearms) Act (in securing and transporting the firearms).”
Judge Jim Hunter said that Norman didn’t use his common sense in transporting the various weapons.
“We would have expected a lot more out of a peace officer and more common sense out of a peace officer — carrying an arsenal like that in your vehicle,” said Hunter.
Hunter said he believed there was nothing nefarious about Norman’s decision to transport them in the way he did, so the police and public were in no danger.