Death threats triggered Baker Lake standoff: Police

DWANE WILKIN
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — A gunman in Baker Lake shot and wounded an RCMP officer on Tuesday during an armed standoff with two dozen Mounties.

Fifteen hours after barricading himself in a house with a rifle, the lone gunman emerged unarmed and surrendered peacefully to RCMP.

Numerous weapons from the house were seized by police following the surrender, including a hunting rifle and a shotgun police say the man discharged several times throughout the ordeal.

The injured police officer, Cpl Mike Beaudoin of Yellowknife’s “G” Division Major Crimes Unit, was flown to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg for medical treatment of a non life-threatening leg wound.

Police surrounded a house on Monday at about 10 p.m. after members of the local RCMP detachment were fired upon while trying to make an arrest.

Sgt. Lindsey Brine, a spokesman for RCMP headquarters in Iqaluit, said the male occupant uttered death threats to an officer and then refused entry to police.

When a single gunshot from inside the house was heard, the officers retreated, forming a containment perimetre around the building.

Homes near the scene of the armed standoff were evacuated and police announcements on the local radio station asked townspeople to remain indoors for their own safety.

“Everybody complied fully with our wishes,” Sgt. Brine said. “We had the full cooperation of the community.”

Because of the situation, hamlet employees could not get to work on Tuesday.

Reinforcements from Rankin Inlet and a special RCMP tactical unit from Yellowknife were flown to Baker Lake to assist in securing the gunman’s surrender.

At one point, say police, the gunman stepped outside, brandishing a weapon and firing it at random.

Unsuccessful negotiations between authorities and the gunman continued through the morning on Tuesday.

Several hours later, the gunman began shooting through the walls of the house from inside, striking Cpl. Beaudoin, police reported.

After being treated by medical specialists in Winnipeg, Cpl. Beaudoin was released on Wednesday with lead fragments in the thigh and calf of his left leg.

The standoff comes just two months after the chief coroner for Nunavut and the Northwest Territories issued a plea for more restricted gun access in aboriginal communities.

In a recent report on last year’s triple murder-suicide in the Nunavut community of Kuglugtuk, Percy Kinney recommended a system of community gun lockups that would prohibit firearms from being stored in the homes of violent offenders.

Nunavut’s chief firearms officer, responsible for overseeing application of Canada’s gun registry in the new territory, also favours the idea of community firearms depots.

RCMP in Baker Lake have arrested 52-year-old James Warren Maxwell, a native of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Maxwell is charged with three counts of attempted murder, three counts of endangering life with a firearm and one count each of uttering a death threat, uttering a threat to commit bodily harm and possession of a firearm while prohibited.