The Moncton Shootings

The Moncton Shootings

An alert on The Weather Network page for Moncton, New Brunswick issued in the morning:

Dangerous Person

Issued at 9:32 AM Thursday 5 June 2014

Importance

HIGH

Recommended Action

The RCMP have advised residents to stay inside their homes and to lock their doors.

Description

A number of RCMP officers have been shot in Moncton. A manhunt is currently underway for a suspect.

A Tweet sent by the RCMP just after midnight:

RCMPNBJun 06, 12:30am via TweetDeck

Justin Bourque arrested by RCMP at 12:10 in Moncton. He is in police custody. Residents of north Moncton can now leave their homes.

A First Hand Account of the Moncton lockdown:

“Janelle and I took the kids down to the basement and told them we were going to have a Super Fun Adventure Day and that there would be no school. We played games, watched their favourite movies, had a little dance party and made forts out of blankest and chairs.

The kids had no idea what was going on, but all Janelle and I could think of was Justin Bourque, this insane killer loose in our neighbourhood. The whole thing, it was just like from a horror film. Do you think the two are connected? That sick people imitate horror movies or that there are two parallel streams, both running with the same polluted water? I have no idea, and the truth is that I couldn’t think straight all day. I was just a tangle of horrible, frenzied nerves, imagining every possible scenario. I was so glad that the hospitals had canceled their elective surgeries and that I didn’t have to go into work, because I really needed to be with my family, that need just pulled me from the inside, you know? Lord, everything was closed, schools and colleges, public transit, shopping malls, government offices, even the zoo, anywhere large groups of people might have been. It’s just awful, to have to think like a killer, just horrible.…Eventually the kids, oblivious, exhausted and actually happy, fell asleep, but Janelle and I could not. We drank wine and held one another for an hour or two and then I checked my phone and saw that the RCMP had sent out a text saying that they’d caught him and all I wanted to do was go outside, and so we did, all four of us. I had been hoping for stars in the sky, again like a movie, but this one with a happy ending, but it was raining lightly, and even though it was late the Benoit family were also standing outside their front door, and when they saw us they smiled and waved, and that’s when I just burst into tears.”

–Amanda Cunningham