STONY PLAIN — The Mountie in charge of four Alberta officers murdered by James Roszko in 2005 has placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the gunman’s accomplices.
Sgt. Jim Martin didn’t refer to Dennis Cheeseman and Shawn Hennessey by name while testifying Tuesday at a fatality inquiry. But he said if anyone who knew of Roszko’s murderous intent that night would have simply called to warn the RCMP, everything would have changed.
“I would have pulled all my members out of the area and called in the emergency response team,” Martin testified while the parents of Hennessey looked straight back at him from the gallery of the provincial court.
“It would have changed everything if we had immediate knowledge of Roszko coming back onto the property or attempting to come back on the property in stealth manner.”
Hennessey and Cheeseman are both in prison after pleading guilty two years ago to giving Roszko a rifle and a ride back to his farm the morning Roszko surprised and shot the officers who were guarding his Quonset hut.
The two admitted in court that Roszko was angry at police that night and said they considered warning the officers, but didn’t because they feared reprisal from Roszko.
Outside court, Shawn Hennessey’s father, Barry Hennessey, said he was appalled by Martin’s comments and said the RCMP are to blame for failing to secure the scene. He said the force should have made more of an effort to track down Roszko in the hours before the attack, given that it was common knowledge that Roszko hated police and had a criminal history of violence.
“They knew the man had weapons, ammunition, they knew he was off his rocker. There should have never been anybody lose their life out there,” Barry Hennessey told reporters.
“As far as I’m concerned a lot of the moral culpability was on the stand today. He has as much moral culpability as the two boys who are spending time in jail.
“He knew what was going to happen over there or had potential to happen over there and he neglected to do anything about it.”
The inquiry was called to determine the circumstances that led to the deaths of constables Anthony Gordon, Peter Schiemann, Leo Johnston and Brock Myrol.
The four were ambushed by Roszko, 46, just before 10 a.m. on March 3, 2005 at Roszko’s farm near Mayerthorpe, northwest of Edmonton.
They had gone to Roszko’s farm a day earlier to help bailiffs repossess a truck, but Roszko fled. While at the scene, Mounties found evidence of stolen auto parts and a marijuana grow operation in the Quonset. They were guarding it when he attacked.
Martin’s testimony at the inquiry is key because the critical question has been whether the RCMP accurately assessed the threat posed by Roszko and took adequate steps to keep the officers safe.
Some of the steps taken by Martin paint a picture of a rural police detachment that had manpower for basic cases, but had to beg and borrow officers and equipment when faced with a big investigation.
On the Roszko case, Martin said he juggled staff with his highway patrol unit and with the nearby Whitecourt detachment, where Gordon was based. The Mayerthorpe unit didn’t have night vision goggles.
Nearby Evansburg had some, but the lone officer on duty that night couldn’t get to Mayerthorpe to deliver them.
Martin testified that while Roszko has been described as a cop-hating sociopath, his officers rarely dealt with the man, and that when confronted by authority, he would run away.
“We never had any dealings with him as a cop-hating persona,” said Martin, who was a corporal in 2005, but has since been transferred to nearby Spruce Grove and promoted to sergeant.
“James Roszko did no business in Mayerthorpe. He never came into town.”
Martin said that members knew Roszko had a violent criminal past dating back to his teen years — charges and convictions for assault, sex assault, uttering threats, break and enter and more.
But Martin also said that other than laying an illegal spike belt to protect his property eight months before the murders, Roszko had basically steered clear of police for years.
Martin said RCMP detachment staff, who knew Roszko in the 1990s, told stories about how he would lodge complaints against police over their criminal investigations.
But Roszko was an unknown quantity, more of an abstract threat than a real one, to Martin and the four slain officers, who all had come to the Mayerthorpe area after all that.
In the hours before the attack, however, when police searched Roszko’s trailer-home as part of the marijuana bust, they found ammunition, a scanner turned to the Whitecourt RCMP channel, phone numbers of Mounties and their commanders and lists of officers and their vehicles.
“We relayed that to members (on scene) immediately,” said Martin.
“We told them we found ammunition and where there’s ammunition there’s got to be guns.”
They never did find guns, and with Roszko at large, Martin decided to leave two officers behind to guard the scene at night.
He always assumed Roszko was armed, he said.
“Did you consider that Roszko might return while Johnston and Gordon were on the property?,” asked Crown lawyer Alan Meikle.
“It was always a consideration,” he replied.
After shooting the officers, Roszko was shot by another officer arriving at the scene.
Roszko retreated back into the Quonset, put the rifle barrel to his heart and pulled the trigger. He died instantly.