Police are grateful and reflective, but have no investigative updates to share on the one-year anniversary of a shootout outside a Saanich, B.C., bank that left two suspects dead and six officers wounded.
Saanich Police Chief Const. Dean Duthie said the past 12 months have been “full of emotion, full of learning, full of growing,” and of time spent strengthening relationships forged through the “ups and downs.”
“Everyone’s dealing with this trauma in different ways and at different speeds,” he told Global News. “Navigating through this year has been very challenging, but we have remained there for each other, being strong for each other as we continue to move forward.”
On June 28 last year, Isaac and Matthw Auchterlonie — 22-year-old twins from Duncan, B.C. — entered a Bank of Montreal on Shelbourne Street, taking hostages in what appeared to be an attempted robbery. Their primary objective, however, was later determined to be the killing of police officers in a stand against government regulations, particularly with regard to firearms ownership.
According to a report from B.C.’s civilian police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office (IIO), the Auchterlonies were armed with 7.62-millimetre calibre SKS semi-automatic rifles with extended magazines and a large sheath knife, and wore body armour including leg protection and combat boots.
More than 100 rounds were fired in the combined effort to take them down as they shot relentlessly at the attending Saanich police and Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team officers. One brother died with three bullet wounds, the other with nine, the IIO report found.
Three Saanich police officers and three Victoria officers were seriously wounded. All six have been discharged from the hospital, but three have not returned to work, with a long road to recovery ahead. A handful of other officers are also off of work, dealing with psychological injuries.
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“We train for these types of events — any type of active shooter, robbery — but nobody really thinks that they’re going to be faced with this level of violence,” Victoria Chief Const. Del Manak said in an interview.
“It really is mixed emotions around not just the community, but then an outpouring of support that we saw from the community. We’ve never seen the level of affection, emails, cards, flowers, baked goods — people didn’t know how they could show their appreciation, they were just so overwhelmed.”
Manak said the police response to what the IIO described as “unbridled violence,” represents the “highest level of bravery, courage and sacrifice” he has ever seen.
According to the IIO, one officer stepped in front of his wounded colleagues to fire at the suspect. All responding officers took heavy fire, some advancing on foot, others in a van, and some assisting wounded officers in the midst of the chaos.
While the public has marked the day with an outpouring of support for police, Duthie said the Saanich office has not held any formal events.
“We decided to take a very soft approach, a very organic approach, letting people process the day in the best way that they find it is for them — not to impose anything on them,” he explained.
“We’re focusing on a heavy presence, engagement, and just being there. Thus far today, I can tell you that the energy amongst our staff and in the building has been really encouraging and really inspiring.”
The incident left its mark on the Saanich community as well, beyond the bullet holes that riddled the BMO building.
Resident Grace Lampard said she was preparing to go to her work near the bank that day, when she got texts from other staff warning her to stay home.
“It was really scary because I know people who live around here, I know people who work in these other stores,” she said Wednesday. “I went to my shift the next day and everyone who had been there was on edge the whole time, any time a siren or ambulance went by, they all like, froze and got really scared.”
It took a long time for everyone to stop talking about it, she added.
Questions remain about the deadly shooting, one year later.
To date, police have not explained how Auchterlonies obtained their weapons, including four extra firearms, 3,500 rounds of ammunition and 30 undetonated, improvised explosives found in their vehicle by police.
In the last public investigative update in January, RCMP said the brothers were isolated from society, and held extreme antigovernmental and anti-police views centred around gun control restrictions.
“Personal annotations were recovered expressing outrage at the restriction of their access to firearms and body armour,” said Cpl. Alex Bérubé on Jan. 20.
Investigators said the two planned to carry out a shooting in mid-2023 at an unknown location but pursued an earlier date due to having to move out of their house. Police believe the brothers thought they would be caught transporting their stash of weapons during the move.
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