10 years after Moncton shootings, RCMP still struggling with supervisor training

Almost 10 years after a disturbed man with a rifle killed three Mounties in Moncton, N.B., the RCMP have yet to fully implement a key recommendation from a 2014 review aimed at preventing such deadly encounters.

Almost 10 years after a disturbed man with a rifle killed three Mounties in Moncton, N.B., the RCMP have yet to fully implement a key recommendation from a 2014 review aimed at preventing such deadly encounters.

On the evening of June 4, 2014, Justin Bourque was armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a shotgun when he left his mobile home on a self-described mission to kill police officers. Driven by paranoia and hatred for government, the 24-year-old labourer fatally shot constables Fabrice Gevaudan, 45, David Ross, 32, and Douglas Larche, 40.

Two other constables, Darlene Goguen and Eric Dubois, were wounded during Bourque's 20-minute shooting rampage before he escaped into a wooded area at the edge of a residential subdivision.

For more than 29 hours, the city of 69,000 would remain under a virtual state of siege until the crew aboard a surveillance aircraft used an infrared camera to spot the gunman's glowing heat signature on the night of June 5, 2014.

Bourque was sentenced to an unprecedented 75 years in prison, but the New Brunswick Court of Appeal reduced his parole ineligibility period to 25 years after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the law that had made such long sentences possible.

Six months after the slayings, retired RCMP assistant commissioner Alphonse MacNeil released a report with 64 recommendations. Among them was a call for the police force to "examine how it trains front-line supervisors to exercise command and control during critical incidents."