INTERVIEW: William Sweeney

In August, 2007 -- one month after the arrests of Dennis Cheeseman and Shawn Hennessey – RCMP Deputy Commissioner William Sweeney was appointed Special Advisor to the RCMP's new civilian Commissioner, William Elliott. Prior to this, Sweeney had been the Commander of the RCMP in Alberta since 2001 He was the senior RCMP officer in that province on March 3, 2005 when the four Mounties were murdered at the Roszko farm. Sweeney joined the RCMP in 1974 and spent the first fifteen years of his policing career in Alberta. In this exclusive interview with the fifth estate's Linden MacIntyre, Sweeney talks about the legacy of March 3, 2005 and answers criticisms that the force has failed to learn from the murders. Watch the interview online.

Linden MacIntyre: What do we have to show for the three years of learning, agonizing since 2005?

RCMP Deputy Commissioner William Sweeney: You know, I wouldn't isolate Mayerthorpe as an event that learning could be attributable to. The RCMP and other police forces have faced a series of very troubling events where members of our department, our agencies, have been attacked.

When you look at Spiritwood, that was a very unique circumstance. Powerview, Manitoba, where Constable Strongquill was killed started with the two officers trying to stop a vehicle that had high beams on and had not dimmed them to low.

Mayerthorpe obviously was very, very difficult. Stoney Plains, Spruce Grove, the list goes on. And in each of those circumstances, we do take a look at the tactics that we employ when we are responding to events or dealing with general duty police work.

Linden MacIntyre: So having looked at the tactics, let's talk about Mayerthorpe because it's unique, we hope.

William Sweeney: Yeah.

Linden MacIntyre: Having looked at the tactics, what have you concluded?

William Sweeney: In terms of Mayerthorpe itself, obviously there were a number of things that occurred that I'm not at liberty to discuss until the criminal case is concluded. But we looked at the full spectrum of our operations –everything from the equipment that we used to the strategies that were employed by the detachment commander in dealing with this particular incident to the basic training that we provide our members.

As you may know, we have a use of force continuum that the RCMP employees when we train our members and ask them to articulate when they use force in certain circumstances.

That at one end of the spectrum would be something that we would typically examine to make sure that the model actually brings our members to a place where they're making appropriate judgments in dealing with certain threat cues, right through to our radio communication systems, the records management systems, in this case the intelligence network that we use to identify potentially dangerous and habitual offenders. The whole spectrum.

Linden MacIntyre: There were decisions made on the 2nd and 3rd of March about where the focus of attention was going to be. Is it going to be on the property and the material there or is it going to be the bad guy. Decisions were made to leave officers in a very exposed position overnight.

An officer managed to show up there when he wasn't really scheduled to, with no side arm. I mean, what about command decisions that were made? How much scrutiny has there been for them?

William Sweeney: There has been significant scrutiny about the entire sequence of events. Many of the decisions that were made, regrettably, we would discourage others from taking in the future, for example, Constable Schiemann's attendance at the scene when he was not equipped with his body armour or with his firearm.

But I must say, and perhaps this is a sad state of reality, I've been a police officer for 34 years and I say there but for the grace of God go I. I have found myself in circumstances like that, quite unintentionally as Peter Schiemann did.

And it, it's a terrible lesson for us to learn but clearly we have to avoid allowing our members to attend to any type of operational event unless they're appropriately equipped.

But I don't fault Peter Schiemann for that and I don't fault the detachment commander for that. Sadly that was not something that the RCMP had instituted formally in our policy but that now has changed. So that's one learning event that has occurred.

Linden MacIntyre: And the police officers have raised this and it's hypothetical at this point, but to focus on the quonset when a guy like Jimmy Roszko is running somewhere and you don't know where he is - is asking for trouble.

William Sweeney: That could very well be part of the answers as to why this terrible event occurred. Clearly had we been able to apprehend Mr. Roszko prior to his return to the property we would not be talking about such a sad, sad story.

But again, I believe that the detachment commander made operational decisions in the course of the evening. He felt that he was appropriately deploying his personnel. And he did make efforts to locate Roszko but he did focus most of his attention and resources on conducting the investigation at the scene. There's no question about that.

Linden MacIntyre: Let's talk about the commander. What was his understanding of the nature of the threat represented by this guy?

William Sweeney: I think Mr. Roszko's history has been widely reported on, but perhaps not accurately reported on. It was fairly ah frequent interaction with Mr. Roszko by authorities, whether they be the bailiffs in this case or the RCMP members.

But in many instances, for example it's been widely reported that there were 44 prior criminal charges before the courts. But in many of those circumstances that led him to the courts there was a single event or series of events in a very short period of time that attracted a lot of those charges. So there might have been an event that 5 or 6 criminal charges were laid in relation to.

So you know, Mr. Gordon Wong who was senior criminal – or crown counsel with the attorney-general in the province of Alberta conducted an exhaustive review of the – Mr. Roszko's prior interaction with the justice system and under the rules of the system he would not have been characterized or found to be a dangerous offender but he was flagged.

Linden MacIntyre: Now, some attention has been paid to the amount of time, the amount of resources spend on the criminal investigation since March of 2005. It might be said that an awful lot of time has been spent on a couple of marginal characters, bit players in the episode at the expense of the more perhaps pressing need to review what you can do internally to improve the health and safety working conditions for mounties.

William Sweeney: Well, you know, criminal investigations do cost a lot of money, no question about that particular reality. When you're talking about four individuals that were murdered in cold blood, I think that we owe their families and we owe the members the comfort to know that we will conduct a very thorough and very comprehensive investigation and we will find out the truth of all elements of the events that led to their death.

We do that in virtually every homicide case. Project Care, if you want to look at comparative costs, ah the Mayerthorpe investigation pales by comparison. Project Evenhanded, all of these investigations are significant investments of human resources and our assets. And we would have it no other way and I don't think the Canadian public would have it any other way.

Linden MacIntyre: People who know the suspects suggest that if somebody had called them u and said 'come on in and talk, you've got some explainin' to do about a rifle, you've got some explainin' to do about a bunch of phone calls', that they would have come in and that these were not hardened guys. It wouldn't have taken long for a skilful police examination to have got about as far as it took you two years to get with an undercover operation.

William Sweeney: Well, I would suggest to you that well first off we're getting dangerously into the investigation.

Linden MacIntyre: But you can say a little bit more clearly what it is that's on your mind that justifies the two years, and I'm being approximate here, spend. Some lawyer will use the entrapment word some day and you're ready for it, I'm sure. But you spend two years nailing down the perimetre of these two particular individuals when you might have done the old-fashioned thing which is to say, boys get in here and explain yourselves.

William Sweeney: Yeah. And you know, most people in today's society recognize that they have rights. We live in a country that is predicated on rule of law and they seek legal counsel and they decide what degree they're going to cooperate with the police. And the police are left in some circumstances in using investigative techniques that are appropriate and are sanctioned in law to get to the truth of the matter.

Linden MacIntyre: There was an extremely aggressive process, certainly for one of these people. What was the necessity for that?

William Sweeney: Oh I –

Linden MacIntyre: What was it that, I mean again, there's got to be a little room there for you to sort of say why you felt that was necessary.

William Sweeney: Well you know, I really can't comment on that because that was an operational decision made by the people that were conducting that particular investigation. It wasn't something that I was directly involved in and would be presumptuous for me to even comment on it because –

Linden MacIntyre: But you were the boss.

William Sweeney: I wouldn't be dealing with the day-to-day operational decisions made on criminal investigations. I'm the boss of a pretty big area and details respecting all of the investigations aren't necessarily things that migrate to my desk.

Linden MacIntyre: But you can tell me, is that standard procedure now if you have suspects and they had no past criminal records. Suspects in a serious situation that this is the standard procedure, to mount a very serious and extremely aggressive operation to bring them in.

William Sweeney: Well you know, I think the best answer to that Linden, and I'm not trying to, to dodge it by any stretch of the imagination, but that would be something that will probably be tendered as evidence in a criminal court and the person that would most likely – well in my estimation be the best person to answer that is the person that made that decision as to what tactics would be used to arrest what person.

And they'll be asked those questions in a courtroom and be challenged by, by counsel. And I think that's appropriate, that's right, and it would be inappropriate for me to speculate on what was their rationale for their operational decision.

Linden MacIntyre: Let's talk a bit about an ear that we've just visited briefly. Officer training, officer equipment, sort of tactical decisions made on the fly.

William Sweeney: Yeah.

Linden MacIntyre: What have you learned from Mayerthorpe that will make the job a little bit safer, if that's possible.

William Sweeney: I think one of the more chilling reminders that Mayerthorpe and Spiritwood and Powerview, Manitoba, all have impressed upon anybody in a uniform, anybody who responds to law enforcement responsibilities or is involved in law enforcement is that there is today an alarming number of individuals that will attack the police in – When I was a young constable, it was unheard of that people would return to a crime scene and deliberately attack the officers that were conducting an investigation.

I can't ever recall that ever happening. Not to say that it didn't but it certainly wasn't something that I personally had encountered nor had it been anything that my colleagues had ever talked about. I'd never heard of people chasing down a police car into a detachment compound and shooting two constables that were out conducting relatively routine and regularly, you know, unspectacular enforcement activities.

So I think that if I could roll back the clock and whisper in the ears of all those members, I would tell them to be alert and vigilant and aware and never be complacent. And that's a huge, huge challenge for us is for members of the RCMP not to assume, or any police force for that matter, not to assume that they are totally safe in any environment and under any circumstance. It can happen in a millisecond.

Secondly, we recognize that we have to have better tools that support our men and women on the front line. And the RCMP over the last few years has invested significantly in our records management systems that allows people access right from their vehicles to our remote databases. So information respecting Roszko or others can be more quickly transmitted to the men and women that are on the front line. That's always been a problem for us and a huge challenge.

The tools that our people use out in Alberta and other places are aging and we have to ensure that they are properly equipped with radio communications. We have to look at the full spectrum of tools that are available.

Our hard body armour, for example, I don't know if you've actually ever seen it. But the only hard body armour – when I refer to hard, it's a body armour that will actually stop high powered rifles. It weighs 7 kilograms. When you put this on it will probably protect you in a 12 inch square in your chest and a 12 inch square on your back. You can't wear that for 8 hours on shift.

So we're looking for new technological solutions to the body armour component. So it's virtually everything. Tactics – we're now looking at our IMIM models to adopt a standard that now the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police had adopted which is a slight improvement but an improvement nevertheless on what we're going to train our people on use of force options.

In depot, we've adopted scenario based training options for our young men and women. In the past, when I trained for example, we would train in scenarios or hear stories from others. But typically these would be in an urban environment and we wouldn't be taking them out and saying that if you went into a rural farmhouse setting how would you position yourself, how would you place your vehicles, what sort of risks or what sort of threat cues are out there that you have to be mindful of.

So all of those things are learning lessons and constantly being evaluated and assessed.

Linden MacIntyre: There's been some conflict between the theory of a, just sort of cold-blooded massacre and a brief one-sided gunfight. How you understand if it was the latter, then it introduces a whole different order to issues for the police. If it was the former well then these guys could have been armed with anything, bazookas and the same thing would have gone down.

Can you give me some indication of which you think it was and which is directing your priorities in terms of getting to some understanding of what happened.

William Sweeney: Well again, I – I'm dangerously into an area that the Crown will be leading evidence on. But I believe that Mr. Roszko intended to return to that farm to kill police officers and I'll leave it at that.

Linden MacIntyre: He intended to return from the very outset of his flight.

William Sweeney: At some point in the evening he made a decision that he was going to return to that farm and kill RCMP members.

Linden MacIntyre: Because there's a theory has been advanced that we was basically waiting for the police to leave and essentially his dogs drove him nuts because they wouldn't keep quiet all night. They they go quiet and he flips. Do you have any sort of insight into that ....

William Sweeney: The statement I made I believe to be true and I believe the evidence will show that that is true.

Linden MacIntyre: That Mr. Roszko had an early intent to come back and kill policemen

William Sweeney: Yes.

Linden MacIntyre: And carried it out, presumably with the assistance of others.

William Sweeney: Yes.

Linden MacIntyre: Four more tragically dead policemen since then.

William Sweeney: Mhm.

Linden MacIntyre: Is it over-reaching to say that Mayerthorpe may or may not have given insights, direction, motivated changes in armour, weapons. What have you that might have mitigated some of those tragedies. Maybe enabled them to be prevented.

William Sweeney: You know, I would never suggest that there were mitigation measures that could have been implemented before any tragedy occurred. But I don't believe that I can – I can think of anything from Mayerthorpe that was directly ah if we had, for example, recommended a recommendation from any of the ah analytical work or investigative reports that we had completed in relation to Mayerthorpe whether they would have had any bearing on any of the other incidences.

Each of them are tragic and sad and terrible in their own right but each of them are unique in their own right. And police work is so unpredictable. When you're dealing with people, you know, things can go terrible in a millisecond. And if people have evil intentions or something triggers a violent event, it's usually the police officer that's in a defensive situation. We're at the disadvantage right from the onset.

And my knowledge of the other events – I mean in Spiritwood we had three members on the ground. In Powerview there were two. In Sprucegrove there was an emergency response team and you know, a cast of 30 or 40 other supporting assets.

When somebody who is intent on violent actions has a weapon and has the will to use them, it becomes very difficult to predict all possibilities and to mitigate all those in advance. Well it's an inherently dangerous profession.

Linden MacIntyre: The one internal review that I have seen leaves me a little bit confused. One the one hand it says Roszko's attack was premeditated, unprecedented and all these other things. He was known to be an extremely bad guy but not a deadly threat to the police officers. What does that mean?

William Sweeney: You know, you're right to say that that could be very confusing because I – those aren't my words so I – I'm a little bit hesitant to defend them.

I can offer a perspective if you'd like that and it relates back to the issue of flagging individuals. Most of the offences that Mr. Roszko had been before the courts on related to interaction with other people within the community and not necessarily involved directly with incidences of violence involving the police.

And I should qualify that. Any time that you have somebody that's predisposed to violence it's of concern to you as a police officer in a community and in a place like Mayerthorpe which is generally a very peaceful community, Roszko would stand out.

So the membership would be aware of him. They also would be aware of his criminal past to, perhaps not in the detail that we now have before us as a consequence of Mr. Wong's behaviour but they would have been aware of his past.

Linden MacIntyre: All the members?

William Sweeney: In Mayerthorpe?

Linden MacIntyre: Yeah.

William Sweeney: I would be very surprised. It could very well be that new arrivals at the detachment may not have had much of an opportunity to be exposed. For example Brock Myrol had only been there a very short period of time.

But I'm quite confident by word of mouth alone people would be aware that Mr. Roscoe was somebody that you should use caution when you're dealing with.

So I think it would be fair to characterize him as somebody that people within the detachment would know about but not necessarily somebody that was of such a concern, particularly from a legal perspective, that a dangerous offender application, for example, would have occurred.

Mr. Wong in his assessment of the case stated that had he been charged with another offence involving sexual exploitation of children, perhaps that would have been grounds in law to to make a dangerous offender application. But there was no justification up to that point in time. But that's the legal side. The local side, members in my experience typically use caution with certain individuals when they know –

Linden MacIntyre: Well as a matter of fact, one former Mayerthorpe officer that I've talked to would not, says we would have have turned his back on Jimmy Roszko for two seconds. And if Jimmy ran away from the farm, he wouldn't stop chasing him until he caught him. And then he would go on the property. I mean this is not a limited local appreciation of Mr. Roszko.

William Sweeney: No and I didn't mean to leave you with that impression but I was talking from a local perspective. It would have been a topic of interest to the detachment members in Mayerthorpe, much more so than say members in Strathmore. They wouldn't necessarily know who Roszko was but people in Mayerthorpe would.

But it's always I guess interesting to hear what others who weren't there say that they would do. And I've always been averse to trying to speculate on what I would do in certain circumstances because quite often you don't understand all of the, the factors that led to individuals to make the decision that they did, unless you were actually walking in their shoes.

So I would be very hesitate to endorse somebody else's perspective on this. Roscoe was gone from the scene by the time our members were there.

Linden MacIntyre: I want to put you, with all respect, a perception because I want your reaction to it. and this is the perception that there has been a long, prolonged criminal inquiry because it pre-empts public accountability, that you're stalling in short. That this long pursuit of accomplices and co-conspirators has been either deliberately or has had the accidental effect of preventing sort of a public inquiry, fatalities inquire, whatever. What is your answer to that?

William Sweeney: Well it's an interesting perspective. Because if , assuming there's some currency to that proposal it would seem to me rather counter intuitive that the means that we would choose to actually disclose what we had discovered in the course of our investigation would be a criminal trial.

There is a case called Stinchcombe that requires complete – complete disclosure of all the information in the hands of the police that's relevant to a particular file. If there was any sense of legitimacy to that theory you'd be absolutely bizarre to lay a criminal charge against another individual.

The truth of the matter is that we wanted to know the complete facts that led to this terrible event. And we were prepared to continue on a lot longer than we are now to get us to the point that we are today if that was required. But that's the truth in any criminal investigation.

Linden MacIntyre: The RCMP has had its controversial moments in the last little while.

William Sweeney: Oh yeah.

Linden MacIntyre: And given the nature of some of them, do you really want to start airing this kind of linen in public in the middle of that other stuff? I mean, I'm not saying you're not dealing with it internally. I'm not saying that you're not concerned about it and trying to deal - but to have it all unfolding on a public platform.

William Sweeney: You know, I think it would be reprehensible for any person to prolong an investigation or event like this because of motivation like that. It would be absolutely morally reprehensible. We have families that are sitting there asking the questions that the Canadian public are asking that didn't have any inside knowledge. People that I would see on a day to day basis.

I shouldn't say day to day basis – a regular basis. People who are good people. There is absolutely, absolutely no way that I would do anything to prolong their sadness. And nor would any other member of the Mounted Police.

But having said that, we're absolutely determined to complete a criminal investigation and we're prepared, as I mentioned before, to go to whatever length we needed to go within the confines of the law to discover all of the elements of this particular circumstance.

And it's now for a court, applying Canadian standards, to determine whether or not the evidence substantiates a criminal conviction or not.

Linden MacIntyre: Will the trial of Hennessey and Cheeseman become our principal access to a public discussion of what went down at Mayerthorpe?

William Sweeney: No, not at all. There are probably a number of people within the province of Alberta that are waiting to see the criminal process actually unfold before they make a determination on when a fatality inquiry will be held. And that's another very public process that would examine all the circumstances around the death of our four members and allow interveners and interested parties to ask questions about the propriety of decisions that were made, ah things that occurred that were germane to the actual event.

So the fatality inquiry will be the next significant public forum.

Linden MacIntyre: It could be a long time in the future though.

William Sweeney: Unfortunately yeah. But that's our system.

Linden MacIntyre: Can I ask you a real simple question?

William Sweeney: Thank you. I like simple questions.

Linden MacIntyre: What went wrong?

William Sweeney: There? You know, we had a man, as I mentioned, and I'm convinced had evil intentions, that had an absolute – absolute desire to kill RCMP members who returned to the scene.

We had members that were about to leave the scene. Their relief were arriving. In fact, the auto theft people had just arrived when ah the shootings occurred. There were other reinforcements coming back from the detachment to continue on with the investigation.

You know, in military jargon it's – the dawn is always the most dangerous time. You think the danger is past, your guard is down and things happen.

It would not have happened if we had – not had a man that was so evil.

Linden MacIntyre: But that's all about him. What about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. What went wrong on that side of the equation?

William Sweeney: As I mentioned to you, I think it was the turnover, that people had let their guard down. Had believed that any danger had passed. There was a lot of radio traffic. The senior NCOs were returning to the scene. It was members that believed that they were not at risk when they were.