Police shootout on Hwy 1

[Treblehook]

To my5cents: Did it ever occur to you that the information that the police were releasing was [to some extent] limited by (A) investigational concerns; (B) the law as pertains to what they knew and what they suspected; (C) considerations of officer and public safety? Many of us would be interested in your musings as to what the motivation might be for the RCMP "lying to the public about this incident". The police actions in cases like this have as a 1st priority... Public Safety, which most of us understand comes before the safety of the police officers involved. To that end, I am sure the police wanted to make sure that this armed and dangerous suspect was not holding some motorists hostage. You might not know that one of the principles of managing a hostage situation is to prevent it from going mobile if at all possible. I only mention these points as an inducement to consider that there may well have been more to the decisions of the police than simply the convenience of lying to the public. Unbelievable.

[60-YEARS-in-Ktown]

Not me. How far from town was the spike belts ? did he get past there driving
Where did the vehicle stop, and where were the cops.? Then how far did he get ?
Or did they hit him with a lead curtain as soon as they could shoot?
I know some of the area, some places there would become a vast search area..like up the Bend on the west side..

Cant see how saying they were looking for a native suspect with description of clothing, would have been detrimental to release to the public..

[Treblehook]

Of course, all we have to go on is the reports in the media which indicate this moron shot at the police and wounded one of the officers. That kind of thing normally results in the police returning fire [when] they are confident that discharging their weapons is not likely to cause injury or death to bystanders. When the police shoot at someone, there is a reasonable likelihood that their rounds will find their mark. If this moron died from a gunshot wound, it it might have been from a police bullet, given the circumstances. It is not unheard of for suspects in these kinds of situations, to take their own lives via suicide. Too bad he had to die, but any thinking person would quickly realize that he [and he alone] contributed 100% to his own demise, be it by a police bullet or his own hand. As Ken7 posted, NFAR CH. Now those misguided investigators from the BC IIO can have a run at finding some reason to recommend criminal charges against the officers involved.

[my5cents]

To my5cents: Did it ever occur to you that the information that the police were releasing was [to some extent] limited by (A) investigational concerns; (B) the law as pertains to what they knew and what they suspected; (C) considerations of officer and public safety? Many of us would be interested in your musings as to what the motivation might be for the RCMP "lying to the public about this incident". The police actions in cases like this have as a 1st priority... Public Safety, which most of us understand comes before the safety of the police officers involved. To that end, I am sure the police wanted to make sure that this armed and dangerous suspect was not holding some motorists hostage. You might not know that one of the principles of managing a hostage situation is to prevent it from going mobile if at all possible. I only mention these points as an inducement to consider that there may well have been more to the decisions of the police than simply the convenience of lying to the public. Unbelievable.

I believe that the "1st Priority" as you said, public safety, was the one thing that the RCMP did not protect.

The initial information released was (not verbatim) that the police "road check" involved a theft investigation.

The miss-information abounds, however. Just now on the CHBC News it was reported that Thunderblanket shot the member "after a routine traffic stop". (typical CHBC, not even close to the facts)

Unless we believe that the RCMP had no idea that the Saskatchewan van contained Thunderblanket, and that the unknown suspect in the Sask van was involved in some type of theft completely isolated from the murder, attempted murder and other charges he was wanted for in Saskatchewan , we are left to believe the RCMP knew they were trying to arrest Thunderblanket.

I have no idea why, if the RCMP knew they were stopping vehicles on the highway for the purpose of locating and arresting Thunderblanket, they said they were investigating a theft. Thuderblanket was wanted for many criminal charges but theft wasn't one of them.

At the time the RCMP released the information that a member had been shot at a "road check" (really a roadblock), looking for a vehicle involved in a theft, Thunderblanket was already in the wind in a second vehicle headed for or in Revelstoke.

Why there would be an operational need to state that a suspect in a theft had shot a member and had fled in a vehicle obtained at gun point vs the truth, I have no idea.

"You might not know that one of the principles of managing a hostage situation is to prevent it from going mobile if at all possible."
a) Thuderblanket was already mobile
b) If the police were concerned that Thunderblanket was holding a hostage, stopping him in a vehicle surrounded by many other motorists is NOT protecting "Public Safety"

The area concerned has many normal traffic disruptions. IF the RCMP were concerned that he had a hostage. The first step would be observation. Locate the vehicle, then create a scenario, such as a "construction stop".

They had hundreds of kilometers in which to stop his vehicle. The one circumstance, I suggest, that would be the very worst would be stopping him in the vicinity of other motorists.

Once stopped in the ruse construction stop, a member in plain clothes (hard hat, stop sign, vest) could walk up to his vehicle and advise him that the delay would be only "a few minutes" and check for any passengers. With traffic stopped opposing a safe distance to the East, allow him to proceed to a second location, but holding the rest of the line of traffic behind his vehicle stopped. Then stop him a second time away from all traffic, at another "construction stop" and swoop in.

Stopping him in a roadblock ? What if he did have a hostage ? How would the method that was used protect/save the hostage ? How did it keep the public safe ? It didn't.

They were lucky. He could have easily taken the elderly couple hostage who's vehicle he left in. A stray bullet could have easily hit one of the many motorists nearby.

The roadblock was the simplest easiest and most dangerous option and they took it.

[Fancy]

Police are saying thanks in the aftermath of the high-profile shooting of a police officer on Highway 1 this week.

"I want to take this time to thank everyone who has reached out from across the country to offer their words of support and condolences while we continue to investigate what led to the events that day," said Sgt. Betty Watson, commander of the RCMP's Golden-Field detachment.

On Tuesday, a female Mountie was shot at a police road check near Golden. The shooter then stole an SUV at gunpoint and fled toward Revelstoke. Police scouring the woods east of the city, found the body of the suspect, Sheldon Kyle Thunderblanket, Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, the police officer shot in Golden had reconstructive surgery on her hand and arm and is recovering.

After the shooting, Mounties closed the busy Trans-Canada Highway for hours.

"Specifically, I want to thank those motorists who patiently waited along the highway for investigators to process the scene. I can assure you that your safety was an absolute priority for us while we investigated," said Watson.

"I would also like to thank those community members in Golden who offered their thoughts of support, and have dropped off flowers and food. It’s things like this that remind us just how close this small community can be and makes all of us here proud to call Golden home."

Thunderblanket was wanted in connection with a murder and attempted murder in Saskatchewan.

http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-st ... htm#178238

[Fancy]

Thuderblanket was wanted for many criminal charges but theft wasn't one of them.

Is that a fact?

[Leifer]

And the Monday morning quarterbacking abounds.
So many experts on policing and law enforcement tactics.
Truly....Castanet is blessed.

[Ken7]

so, if this van was stolen from saskatchewan and travelled from there to golden, and the rcmp 'road check' was deployed where it was, not in saskatchewan, not in alberta, but in bc, who makes that call?

who is footing the bill for all these enforcement resources?

In most cases a sighting of a suspect or a suspect vehicle. That would also include information that a wanted suspect is in a given area possibly returning to Saskatchewan.

Just my past experience speaking.

[60-YEARS-in-Ktown]

My guess is the van got sighted in or near Golden, they picked an area Away from town, to try to stop him..
Roadblock for theft suspect. Likely means everyone is getting their trunk searched.

[A_Britishcolumbian]

i hear you ken7, there is information regarding the time that the 'road check' got set up that i haven't found/seen yet.

we know very many people had already passed thru though, and many report being told of a search for a stolen something/vehicle, and from golden.

what i gather from virtually every article and every comment is that most everyone is not clear that the suspect was travelling westward in the red van, and after the interaction with rcmp then continued westward as we know, in the suv. the statements early that describe the suspect 'crossing the meridian' are distracting/confusing, because the suspect arrived from the east and continued west, there was no change in direction as a result of any meridian hopping that may have been done.

when was the 'road check' setup? was it for thunderblamket? if so, was he spotted in golden, or much further east?

[A_Britishcolumbian]

surgar.net, a new fake news site, has a story published just 4 hours ago saying ...

Police now looking for suspect after incident on highway leaves officer injured

and

Tootoosis said she noted someone was online using Thunderblanket’s Facebook account on Wednesday, even as police were searching Revelstoke, where the stolen auto he was allegedly driving was found.

whois surgar.net?

http://surgar.net/english/science/polic ... d-71/54610

i wonder who was accessing thunderblanket's facebook account.

[Fancy]

Someone is translating wrong.

[goalie]

They usually have road checks near the weigh scale...looking for people without winter tires, drunk drivers, drug runners etc. I don't think they were looking for Thunderblanket from the sounds of it. I guess we will find out eventually.

[my5cents]

what i gather from virtually every article and every comment is that most everyone is not clear that the suspect was travelling westward in the red van, and after the interaction with rcmp then continued westward as we know, in the suv. the statements early that describe the suspect 'crossing the meridian' are distracting/confusing, because the suspect arrived from the east and continued west, there was no change in direction as a result of any meridian hopping that may have been done.

when was the 'road check' setup? was it for thunderblamket? if so, was he spotted in golden, or much further east?

I agree, not much is clear. Not even the same facts (correct or incorrect) are consistently reported.

When this was first reported I compared the initial photo's, showing the abandoned red Van (can't find them on any sites now) with Maps Google street view and it was clear from the background in each that the red van was East bound when this happened.

From accounts, the suspect fled across the concrete barrier and commandeered a West bound SUV and left West bound towards Revelstoke. This makes sense that the suspect crossed to the West bound side of the road because the East bound side was blocked in the "road check" or "roadblock".

In putting together snippets from various interviews and reports, it seems the suspect was in a line of cars stopped inching up to the front of the line where police were checking vehicles. The driver of the lead vehicle, immediately ahead of the suspect vehicle, said that the police were using his vehicle for cover during the shooting.

It hasn't been made clear if West bound traffic was being stopped.

I'm with you on wanting details. First off I think most of us call a "road check", a routine check by police for, seat belts, snow tires, etc etc. We call a situation where the police stop all traffic and check vehicles for criminals leaving the area of a crime, or whatever, as a "roadblock". "Roadblock" has and is sometimes used to describe the road check scenario, but not usually the reverse.

If this was a "roadblock" was it commenced to look for Thunderblanket ?

There is so much miss-information from the media, and even the IIO site.

The media has said on several occasions that the vehicle was stopped in a "routine traffic stop" and after the shooting the suspect drove away, never mentioning crossing the median commandeering another vehicle at gun point.

Even on the IIO site says : "At around 2 p.m. on Tuesday, October 11, RCMP report that officers conducted a vehicle stop on Highway 1, west of Golden. During the vehicle stop a police officer sustained gunshot wounds. Police report that a male drove away....."
https://iiobc.ca/2016/10/12/iio-deploys ... 16-000202/

I wouldn't put anything past the IIO, of every investigative agency in BC they've got to be the worst. I think the one thing we do know is that police were stopping vehicles for something, be it a "road check" or a "roadblock". I don't know many people that would call the situation that started this as a "vehicle stop". Also, yes "a male drove away", but the IIO are certainly leaving a very crucial detail out.

Now that this investigation is in the hands of the IIO, the RCMP won't say a word. The IIO will likely have a "full" and "impartial" investigation completed within the next year or two. By then nobody will care.

[A_Britishcolumbian]

the details of this article make me think to post it here viewtopic.php?f=52&t=59046&start=705

A warrant for Mr. Thunderblanket’s arrest was already out in connection with a murder in Little Pine Fire Nation, Saskatchewan that took place on Monday night.

Fearing that Mr. Thunderblanket was turning his car around to come through the area again, police instructed everyone who was stopped in their vehicles to take cover in the ditch for their safety, said Jeremy Passmore of Radium Hot Springs, who said he was about 30 cars back at the time of the shooting.

Mr. Passmore said people huddled together in the ditch for nearly two hours before the RCMP deemed it was safe to return to their cars and escape the cold fall air. He said it was an incredibly stressful time for all those involved.

“It was frustrating because it was damn cold and a lot of families, young babies and mothers, didn’t have quite enough warm blankets,” he said. “People were trying to share blankets and keep everyone warm, but it was very frustrating. There were a lot of people who were nervous and scared and didn’t notice what was going on.”

http://www.columbiavalleypioneer.com/?p=18970