Issuu

Wednesday, July 24, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Ginger and radish Megan McAvity Ludow, 8, shows the radish she picked Tuesday morning in the student garden at UNBC. She was one of the campers in Science Pals, part of UNBC’s Active Minds summer camps. The theme for this week’s camp is “explore your world.”

ERT improvements made, inquest told Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgictizen.ca Changes have been made to the way emergency response teams are trained and equipped in the nearly five years since a man was shot to death in a standoff with RCMP at a remote cabin south of Valemount, a coroner’s inquest was told Tuesday. John Robert Buehler, 51, was killed during the evening of Sept.

17, 2014, while his daughter, Shanna, was seriously wounded during a confrontation with RCMP after the two began squatting in a trapper’s cabin near Kinbasket Lake about 60 kilometres south of Valemount. Among the changes, ERT members now train for 40 hours per month, up from two days per month at the time of Buehler’s death, Staff Sgt. Jamie McGowan, the RCMP’s ERT national coordi-

nator, told the inquest via a video feed to the Prince George courthouse from Ottawa. He also said the RCMP is working towards making ERTs a fulltime occupation. However, as far as he knows, McGowan said just two of the North District RCMP’s ERT are full-time while the rest are assigned to other duties when not training or on an ERT assignment. Continuing the push to make

positions on all ERTs full-time would deliver the “greatest benefit,” McGowan said, when asked for suggestions on recommendations the inquest jury could make to prevent similar deaths in the future. “Having them split two different duties, where they may be a general duty patrol officer one minute or a drug section member, and have to (change their) role I think is not doing a service to our mem-

bers or for the public just because we can’t spend enough time on the training the skills,” McGowan said. In terms of equipment, McGowan said so-called bean bag guns, which were used against Buehler but ineffective, have been replaced with ones that fire 40 mm impact munitions and have been used to “successfully resolve situations that could have resulted in lethal force otherwise.” — See BETTER on page 3

Missing teens suspects in northern murders The Canadian Press/Glacier Media Two teenagers who were thought to be missing are now considered suspects in the deaths of three people in northern British Columbia, setting off a nationwide manhunt for the pair who are considered armed and dangerous. RCMP said Tuesday Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, are suspects in the shooting deaths of Lucas Fowler of Sydney, Australia, his girlfriend Chynna Deese of Charlotte, N.C., and an unidentified man whose body was found a few kilometres from the teens’ burned-out vehicle. Later Tuesday, police said McLeod and

Schmegelsky may be in Manitoba after a reported sighting in the northern town of Gillam. They had also been seen earlier in northern Saskatchewan, driving a grey 2011 Toyota Rav 4, said Sgt. Janelle Shoihet. She said anyone who spots the teens, both six-foot-4 inches tall and each weighing around 169 pounds, should not approach them but call 911. Police initially thought the teenagers were missing but after making an appeal to the public on Monday, investigators received new information that led them to believe they are suspects in all three deaths, Shoihet said. Shoihet said she could not release details

Today’s Weather Hi +17° Low +8° See page 2 for more details and short-term forecasts

LOCAL HOROSCOPE NEWS OPINION A&E

1-3 2 4,5 6 8

SPORTS COMICS CROSSWORD MONEY CLASSIFIEDS

9-10 11 11 12 13-16

about how investigators determined McLeod and Schmegelsky were suspects. But she said police are taking the “unprecedented” step of urging anyone with information on their whereabouts to come forward. RCMP also released new photographs of the teens taken recently in northern Saskatchewan. Mounties did not say where they were seen. McLeod and Schmegelsky – best friends since elementary school – had left Port Alberni for Whitehorse July 12 to find work, Schmegelsky’s grandmother, Carol Starkey, said. If they had taken the ferry to Prince Rupert, the route to Whitehorse is up Highway

George Takei’s amazing trek

www.pgcitizen.ca

A&E 8

37 through Dease Lake. However, police had reports of them being seen travelling south from the Super A general store in Dease Lake at about 3:15 p.m. last Thursday. Schmegelsky’s father, Alan Schmegelsky, said he received a message from Bryer July 12 saying he and McLeod were headed to Alberta and might be uncontactable. Schmegelsky described his son as “a smart kid,” into computer games, curious about his ancestry and just starting to become less introverted. Neither is violent or into drugs, he said. He said both enjoy games simulating war that involve hunting and camouflage. — See TEENS on page 2

Newsstand $2.00 incl. tax Home Delivered 95¢/day

58307

00200