MONCTON, New Brunswick (AP) — A man convicted of fatally shooting three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers and wounding two others was given Canada’s harshest prison sentence in more than 50 years.
Justin Bourque Friday was sentenced Friday to life in prison with no chance for parole for 75 years by Judge David Smith, four months after Bourque used a semi-automatic rifle to fatally shoot three officers and wound two others in Moncton, New Brunswick. The June 4 killings and ensuing manhunt brought the city of Moncton to a near-standstill until an arrest was made about 30 hours later. The deadliest attack on the national police force, a vaunted Canadian institution, shook the country.
Bourque, 24, pleaded guilty in August to three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.
Bourque’s sentence is the harshest in Canada since its last executions in 1962.
RCMP Assistant Commissioner Roger Brown applauded the long sentence.
“This probably was one of the worst crimes that we’ve ever seen in our country,” Brown said. “We saw three of our own gunned down because of the job they do.”
Bourque faced a mandatory life sentence, so the only issue was when he could apply for parole. First degree murder convicts in Canada typically get a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years, when they can apply for parole. In Bourque’s case he won’t be eligible for parole until he’s 99.
“This has been difficult for everyone,” the judge said, describing the shootings as “one of the most horrific crime sprees to happen in Canada.”
It was the deadliest attack on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police since four officers were killed by a gunman in the western province of Alberta in 2005. That attack remains the deadliest on Canadian police officers in 120 years.
The prosecutor in the Bourque case sought the maximum sentence of 75 years under a section of Canada’s Criminal Code that was amended in 2011. The defense argued for parole eligibility to be set at 50 years.
At his sentencing hearing, a videotaped statement Bourque gave to police after his arrest was entered as evidence. In it, Bourque explains that he wanted to encourage people to rise up against the “soldiers” that defend federal institutions and protect the rich from the poor. He muses about his strict Catholic upbringing, climate change, evolution, social engineering, class warfare, tyrants and threats posed by the Russians and the Chinese.
“I know this is going to sound pretty messed up, but I felt pretty accomplished,” he told police.
Bourque was found competent and mentally fit to stand trial. An agreed statement of facts previously filed with the court says Bourque’s actions were both “planned and deliberate” when he used a Poly Technologies M305, 308-calibre semi-automatic rifle to kill constables Dave Ross, 32, Fabrice Gevaudan, 45, and Douglas Larche, 40. Constables Eric Dubois and Darlene Goguen were also injured in the shootings.
The widows of the officers made tearful statements outside the court.
“I miss my husband every minute of every day. He cannot ever be replaced,” Rachael Ross said.
Nadine Larche said the sentence means their children will unlikely be subject to parole hearings.
The amended Criminal Code provision that factored into Bourque’s sentencing has been used only once before. In September 2013, a judge in Alberta sentenced an armored-car guard to life in prison with no chance at parole for 40 years for gunning down four of his colleagues during a robbery in June 2012.
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