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TSUU T'INA NATION -- A city police canine officer heard RCMP try to contact Connie Jacobs after she and her son were shot dead by an RCMP returning her fire.
Const. Dean Medwid said he heard RCMP try to contact Jacobs with a bullhorn while he was helping surround the scene after the March 22, 1998 fatal shooting of her and nine-year-old son Ty.
Medwid and three other canine members were called after the shooting and stationed themselves in the neighbouring house. He said he heard an RCMP upstairs try in vain to make contact with Jacobs. Medwid said they heard no response. And he said a spotlight shone on the open doorway still didn't allow them to see into the house, where Connie and Ty were later found.
Okotoks RCMP Const. Dave Voller was responding to the home to help social workers apprehend Connie's children when he said she fired at him at about 7:25 p.m.
The inquiry continues Monday.
TSUU T'INA NATION -- Const. Dave Voller followed RCMP procedures when he fired at Connie Jacobs, a fatality inquiry heard yesterday.
Insp. Dennis Massey, a commander with the RCMP's Emergency Response Team, explained Voller's response at the fatality inquiry of Connie, 37, and son Ty, 9, who was behind his mom when she fired on Voller.
Massey said the RCMP's model bases police response on the actions of the suspect -- which ranges from speaking to a suspect to using pepper spray or batons to subdue someone, to finally, using firearms to deal with the threat of death or grievous bodily harm.
"Once Dave Voller was shot at, he moved up to lethal force," said Massey.
Massey said the ERT tried to enter the Jacobs' house as quickly as possible the night of March 22, 1998, but had to take into account she might still be a threat.
"The worst-case scenario was that Mrs. Jacobs was deceased," he said.
Voller had been called to assist social workers apprehend the Jacobs children. Two grandchildren were also in the home.
TSUU T'INA NATION -- Police acted as though Connie Jacobs was holding her children hostage, an RCMP Emergency Response Team commander told her fatality inquiry yesterday. Insp. Dennis Massey said ERT members viewed it as a "hostage-barricaded situation" after being called out to what was later found to be the fatal shooting of Connie, 37, and her nine-year-old son Ty. RCMP Const. Dave Voller, helping social workers apprehend the children, exchanged fire with Connie, killing her and Ty almost instantly, March 22, 1998.
"Connie Jacobs already showed a demonstration of the ability to fire a weapon," said Massey. "We'd have to take into consideration those children not knowingly being held as hostages could be used ... or the mother could act as 'if I can't have these children, nobody can have these children.' "
During cross-examination by Jacobs' family lawyer, Terry Semenuk, Massey said his first-response team didn't consider whether Connie was a criminal. "My concern was that she was a threat to life."
Massey said the team wouldn't have engaged a negotiator unless they'd found Connie alive when they entered the home about 3 1/2 hours after the shooting. But he said the fact they believed she'd been hit by Voller's shot didn't mean she wasn't a threat to police.
"We didn't know the degree of the injury. "If she'd had a flesh wound and was bleeding out, she'd still be capable of firing a weapon."
The inquiry continues today.
TSUU T'INA NATION -- A fight over dinner brought emergency workers to the Jacobs' home four hours before the fatal shooting of a mother and son by a Mountie, their fatality inquiry heard yesterday. Connie Jacobs had thrown a plate at her husband Hardy and cut his head, Calgary emergency medical technicians said at the fatality inquiry of the 37-year-old woman and her nine-year-old son Ty.
"To my memory, (Hardy) stated when his wife gave him the Kraft Dinner he was going to have for lunch he didn't want it, and she ... threw the plate at him," said Doyle Townsend, a former EMT.
Townsend and senior EMT Trent Gahan said Hardy and Connie were helpful as Townsend tended to the 10-cm gash on Hardy's head before they took him to Rockyview Hospital on March 22, 1998.
The EMTs' testimony wrapped up the fifth week of the inquiry, but they were the first witnesses who dealt with the family before the shooting. The inquiry resumes Tuesday, after taking Monday off to observe the anniversary of Ty's and Connie's deaths.
from London Free Press
TSUU T'INA RESERVE, Alta. -- Mondays on this reserve have begun recently with a raft of lawyers reaching into their briefcases for photos and facts, preparing for yet another week of testimony on the deaths of Connie and Ty Jacobs. Not today. It was a year ago that an RCMP officer fatally shot the aboriginal mother and her young son. Band members planned to honour the anniversary with sorrowful prayer chants, spiritual sweetgrass and gifts of food.
Tomorrow the lawyers, a handful of spectators and a judge will return to the provincial fatality inquiry that was originally scheduled to last eight weeks but has since been broadened to 17. "The community needs to be satisfied that all of the facts emerge and that all is being done to avoid recurrences of similar events in the future," said Don MacLeod, a lawyer representing the Tsuu T'ina band southwest of Calgary. "Those who knew the Jacobs family have been deeply and emotionally affected by the events." Those events are slowly unravelling at the inquiry headed by provincial court Judge Thomas Goodson, who is to make recommendations to prevent similar tragedies but cannot lay blame. So far, testimony has come mostly from RCMP and Calgary police who arrived at the Jacobs home after Connie and nine-year-old Ty were killed by a 12-gauge shotgun blast. Alberta's deputy chief medical examiner testified the two died almost instantly by pellets that ripped through their hearts and shattered their jaws. Eight more pellets were found embedded in the walls of the home. An emergency response police team was called to the reserve during a blizzard because officers were told there was a shootout between RCMP and Jacobs at 7:20 p.m.
They were also told Const. Dave Voller, who fired the shot, had been called by social workers who were threatened by Jacobs when they tried to apprehend her four children and two grandchildren. Almost four hours after the shooting, RCMP stormed the Jacobs home to find Connie and Ty lying in the doorway. The mother was clutching a 100-year-old rusty rifle in one hand and a bullet in the other.
Family members have criticized police for leaving the pair lying in pools of blood for hours, but several officers testified they thought Connie was alive and still a threat. They said they had no idea a child had been shot. The commander of the response team said police were justified in using lethal force.
"It's unfortunate, but when someone is predisposed to kill you or wants to kill you, you're gonna die," testified Insp. Dennis Massey. Police found five children, aged 15 months to seven years, sleeping among piles of dirty clothes in the cold basement.
Blood had seeped through the upstairs floor and was dripping into the basement. Tiny bloody footprints were found beside the lifeless bodies upstairs. A poster distributed by Connie's family at the inquiry reads: "Four-year-old Jericko bravely went upstairs to witness his brother and mother dying in a pool of blood. He was heard trying to wake up his mom."
Cynthia Applegarth, Connie's sister, said it's heart-wrenching to sit through the inquiry. "Parts of it definitely are hard, like the part where the one guy (police officer) was testifying and he said he lifted Connie's head up by the hair to take the gun out," she said. "It hurts to think that people would treat a deceased person in that manner. It's so cold." Harry Jacobs, Connie's brother-in-law, is expected to testify tomorrow.
Members of the Tsuu T'ina Nation will pause today to remember the first anniversary of the deaths of Connie and Ty Jacobs. And in a mark of respect, the fatality inquiry into the pairs' deaths will not be sitting. Connie Jacobs, 37, and her son Ty, 9 died a year ago today, when an Okotoks Mountie exchanged a shot with her at about 7:25 p.m. "There's not a day that goes by you don't think of them," said Brian Lambert, Connie's younger brother. "We have to deal with this every day." Connie and Ty died almost instantly, but three of Connie's young children and two of her grandchildren weren't taken from the home until 11 p.m. when RCMP Emergency Response Team members arrived.
Voller had been called to help social workers take the children from the home. Within days of the shooting Alberta Justice Minister Jon Havelock ordered a fatality inquiry into the deaths, an inquiry which is now in its second month and expected to finish in October. Family members will say prayers and hold a sweetgrass ceremony at the site of the shooting today. Lambert said the day is not going to be an easy one. "Your emotions are high as the anniversary comes up," he said. "But again, you have to deal with it."
TSUU T'INA NATION -- A fire chief yesterday told of seeing Connie Jacobs' children eating off the floor and crawling through broken glass. And he said Ty Jacobs, who would shortly die alongside his mother, had an aura of sadness about him.
Chief Chris Bigplume told a fatality inquiry yesterday the Jacobs house was in a "terrible state of disarray." That prompted Bigplume to ask social workers to come to the house -- where a Mountie later shot back at Connie, killing her and her son Ty, 9. And he said his wife's offer to take the children until the house could be cleaned up was refused by Connie.
"One of (the children) was trying to eat off the floor and they were asking for something to eat constantly while we were there," said Bigplume.
The fire chief went to the house March 22, 1998 to help Calgary Emergency Medical Services after a domestic dispute left Connie's husband Hardy with a gash above his eye. Bigplume, whose wife Tanya talked to Connie while he tended to Hardy, said in his five years with the fire department the house was in the worst state he'd seen.
"I have never seen a house with those conditions before on the reserve," said Bigplume, 25. "I believe I described it as being very unkept -- unsuitable for children. There were bits of glass, things, all over the floor. The children didn't have clothes, just diapers, and they were crawling around on the floor."
Bigplume called his mother, who alerted social workers. Okotoks RCMP Const. Dave Voller, later responded to help them and tribal Const. Tammy Dodginghorse take the children, and traded fire with Connie, 37.
"My wife had offered to take the children for the day until something could be done with the house and Connie refused," he said.
Ty seemed saddened when he answered the door for Bigplume, the chief said. "He didn't say anything, he just turned around. Just the look in his eyes -- he seemed sad."
TSUU T'INA NATION -- Lawyers went behind closed doors yesterday to argue which parts of Ty Jacobs' social services file should be admitted in the fatality inquiry of the boy and his mother. Connie Jacobs, 37, and Ty, 9, were killed March 22, 1998 by the shotgun blast of an Okotoks Mountie called to help social workers take the children from the home. Judge Thomas Goodson has already ruled some parts of it will be admissible and some protected, but by the end of yesterday hadn't made an open ruling.
The inquiry resumes April 12, with testimony from Connie's husband Hardy. The inquiry has already heard he received a head injury in a dispute with Connie, and that she later fired on Const. Dave Voller. Calgary Emergency Medical Services dispatcher Don Sharp testified yesterday he told RCMP about the dispute, but felt it didn't require immediate police response. "I'd already spoken to them that day and knew they were quite busy," Sharp said.
"I'm aware of their job; it's like ours. They need to prioritize what they do."
TSUU T'INA NATION -- Connie Jacobs told a social worker "you're not going to take my kids away, not this time," minutes before she pulled a gun on her and another woman. Loraine Duguay told the fatality inquiry of Jacobs and her son Ty, 9, that Jacobs' demeanor had changed drastically since she and social worker Connie Bish found her lying on the house's couch, breast-feeding. Jacobs seemed and smelled drunk and barely answered "yeah, I know," when Bish told her she shouldn't be breast-feeding drunk, Duguay said yesterday.
Duguay, who then managed Tsuu T'ina Child and Family Services, said the warning came before Jacobs herded her four children and two grandchildren into the basement and a mo-ment of "eerie" silence before she returned with the rifle. "As she's standing up and walking she says, 'you're not going to take my kids away, not this time,' " Duguay said. "I remember thinking how her voice had changed in that little span of time ... to the controlling voice that had risen." Duguay said while she looked among the scattered clothes in the house for something for the only partially-dressed children, she wondered how Jacobs got all the children so quiet so fast.
Tribal Const. Tammy Dodginghorse then warned Jacobs might have a gun, and Duguay and Bish took cover in Du-guay's Jimmy. "I looked up and saw Connie Jacobs standing up in the living room window of that house. She was pointing a rifle at us," said Duguay, starting to sob. "I will never forget that view in that window and how straight I thought she was standing," she said."There was no weaving. I really believed she was going to shoot at us." Okotoks RCMP Const. Dave Voller arrived and told the women to wait at the highway.
It was hours later when Duguay and Bish learned he'd exchanged shots with Connie.
TSUU T’INA RESERVE, Alta. (CP) - Two terrified social services workers cowered in their vehicle while a drunken woman brandished a rifle to keep them from apprehending her children, a fatality inquiry heard Monday. "I just sat there as low as I could and I thought if she didn’t see our heads she couldn’t kill us, that we wouldn’t die," said Loraine Duguay, former director of this reserve’s family and social services society. "I just went into shock at that point." Duguay and a social worker just completed writing an application to apprehend six children in Connie Jacob’s house, when the angry mother pulled out a gun, Duguay testified.
Jacobs, 37, and her nine-year old son Ty were later shot dead by an RCMP officer. The mother had allegedly fired at the officer and refused to drop her weapon. The Mounties had been summoned by the two women and a tribal police officer. Duguay was summoned to the reserve March 22, 1998 by social worker Connie Bish because of a concern for six children who earlier that day witnessed an alcohol-fuelled domestic dispute between Connie and Hardy Jacobs. At the house, Duguay was greeted by an unclothed four-year-old boy and saw children’s clothes and empty beer cans strewn throughout. Blood and Kraft dinner was splattered on the floor and walls, she said.
"I felt a lot of empathy at that moment for the children," she said, adding the house was extremely cold. Connie, who reeked of alcohol and was breast feeding her baby, had trouble walking and focusing, Duguay said. The mother told the social worker: "You’re not going to take my kids away, not this time, " Duguay said. Toxicology reports show Connie’s blood-alcohol level was nearly four times the legal driving limit. Of the six children, ages four months to nine years, four were Connie’s and two were her grandchildren.
The mother took the six children to the basement. It was then that tribal police officer Tammy Dodginghorse told Duguay to leave because she remembered Hardy was a hunter and may have guns in the house. Scurrying to her vehicle with Bish, Duguay said she looked up and saw Connie standing in the living room window, pointing a rifle at the two social services workers. Crouched in her vehicle, Duguay started to hyperventilate. "I was losing my breath." Duguay peeked outside the window to see a police cruiser park next to the house. Upon the Mountie’s orders, the two women left the yard and headed toward a highway. That wasn’t the first time social services apprehended Jacob’s children.
Duguay went to the family home one year before the shooting incident and found three boys, ages one, two and eight, walking through the snow on a cold winter day. The boys were under dressed - one had oversized shoes and no socks and all boys didn’t have mittens or hats - so Duguay apprehended the children, putting them under temporary guardianship for six months. During that time, Connie and Hardy Jacobs went to an alcohol treatment center in northern Alberta. The children were returned in August, 1997, under the condition the parents abstain from drinking alcohol. After reading social services files on the Jacobs family, Duguay said she believed Connie and Hardy were good, capable parents when they weren’t drunk. The trial continues with more testimony from social workers this week.
TSUU T'INA NATION -- A child welfare worker maintained she had the power to take children from a nation home, even though her education didn't meet job qualifications and her paperwork had lapsed.
Connie Bish -- on the stand at the Jacobs fatality inquiry yesterday -- was one of the Tsuu T'ina Child and Family Services workers who tried to take Connie Jacobs' children March 22, 1998.
But Connie, 37, brought out a gun and minutes later she and son Ty, 9, died when she exchanged fire with a Mountie who arrived to help the women take Jacobs' four children and two grandchildren.
While Bish -- under examination by Ed Onusko, the lawyer who represents Connie's family -- said the job required a diploma she didn't have, but she argued her 20 years of social work experience was enough to qualify her.
"(The Tsuu T'ina Child and Family Services board) felt I met the requirements to be a child welfare case worker," Bish said.
"I seem to have met them because they hired me."
And Bish said the fact her provincially designated power to apprehend children had lapsed was simply a paperwork oversight by her boss.
"In my mind I had the designated power," said Bish. "It was the paperwork and it wasn't my responsibility to do that."
Bish accompanied her director Loraine Duguay that evening to do what she said was "an investigation" into the home, after learning Connie had assaulted her husband Hardy that day and that both had been drinking.
Both Bish and Duguay have said the other was in charge.
TSUU T'INA NATION -- Two children in a home where a woman and son were shot dead by a Mountie give credible accounts of what they saw, said a corporal who interviewed them one year later. But whether the public can hear all, some or none of their video-taped statements is still a question before the fatality inquiry of Connie Jacobs, 37, and her son Ty, 9. Lawyers will continue arguing this morning whether making public their accounts -- and even their interviewers' testimony -- would hurt them more than it would serve the public good.
Connie's son, Jericho, and granddaughter Clarissa, now both age 5, generally gave credible accounts of their memories of March 22, 1998, said RCMP Cpl. Craig Smith. That was the night Connie exchanged gunfire with Okotoks RCMP Const. Dave Voller, who came to the home to help social workers remove Connie's four children and two grandchildren.
"(Clarissa) gave very detailed and sometimes superfluous details to incidents that happened before and after," said Smith. "In my experience that's a good indication of credibility." Smith said Jericho gave "the hallmark of a truthful response" when asked to clarify his positioning of Ty and Connie at the door where they were shot.
"Overall he was credible, but there were some areas I couldn't interpret," said Smith, adding Jericho was stressed near the end of the interview and he didn't feel he should push him further. The first police who entered the home -- four hours after the shooting -- have said they saw the footprints of a child in the blood near Connie and Ty.
TSUU T'INA NATION -- A lingering fear her children would be abused in foster care may have played a part in Connie Jacobs' decision to fire at a Mountie, her family said. "She made it clear to me she never wanted her children to be in the hands of social services," her sister Cynthia Applegarth told Jacobs' fatality inquiry yesterday. "She felt one of the children had been abused when they'd been apprehended, when they'd been in care." Applegarth and brother Brian Lambert testified they believe the decisions of two child-welfare workers and a tribal constable led to the exchange of fire between Jacobs and an Okotoks Mountie. The shotgun blast fired by Const. Dave Voller killed Jacobs and her nine-year-old son Ty instantly. Two Tsuu T'ina child-welfare workers and tribal Const. Tammy Dodginghorse, who testifies today, were trying to take Jacobs' four children and two grandchildren into custody March 22, 1998, before the shooting. "I'm not here to blame any one of the people," said Applegarth. "I'm here to find out what happened. If there's weakness in the system -- social services, the RCMP, the tribal police -- hopefully this inquiry will find them and strengthen them.
"This could happen on any reserve in any community."
CALGARY - An inquiry into the shooting deaths of Connie and Ty Jacobs will finally hear from the Mountie who fired the fatal shots. RCMP Constable Dave Voller, who was originally scheduled to testify last March -- a year after the incident -- will take the stand for three days starting today. The first two days of his eagerly awaited testimony will be the last evidence heard in the council chambers of the Joseph Big Plume Building at Tsuu T'ina Nation, on the southwestern outskirts of Calgary.
The inquiry into the March 22, 1998, shooting at the Jacobs' rural home began on Feb. 1 and is already expected to run three times longer than the eight weeks that were originally scheduled. The venue will switch on Thursday to Federal Court in Calgary for the remainder of the hearing.
Judge Thomas Goodson made the change following a request by the Tsuu T'ina Band for funding to help pay for expenses caused by the unexpectedly long hearing. The nation had initially offered to stage the inquiry so its citizens could easily attend, but interest has waned since the early stages. Const. Voller, who was later cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in an investigation conducted by the British Columbia Attorney-General's Office, will be the last of the witnesses to the shootings on that cold, snowy evening. The inquiry will continue for the final two weeks of October and two weeks each in November and December, with experts and others who played roles in the incident.
Initially, many residents on the reserve were critical of Const. Voller for shooting Ms. Jacobs, 37, and her nine-year-old son. But numerous witnesses have praised Const. Voller as an officer generally and for his handling of the event on the night in question.
Const. Voller, then a 17-year RCMP member, had arrived at the Jacobs home about 7:20 p.m., shortly after an intoxicated Connie Jacobs had pointed a .303 rifle at child-welfare workers Lorraine Duguay and Connie Bish and tribal police officer Constable Tammy Dodginghorse. They had been summoned to the home to investigate and possibly apprehend Ms. Jacobs' four children and two grandchildren, as a result of her assaulting her husband, Hardy Jacobs, with a plate and sending him to hospital with head wounds earlier in the day.
Within minutes of Const. Voller's arrival, Ms. Jacobs fired her weapon in his direction and he twice warned her to drop the rifle. When she appeared to be reloading and raising the rifle to fire again, Const. Voller fired his 12-gauge shotgun. Both Connie Jacobs, who was standing in the open doorway of the home, and Ty, who was standing behind her, were struck with pellets and died instantly. An autopsy later determined the woman had a blood-alcohol level nearly four times the legal driving limit.
According to the B.C. attorney general's report, Const. Voller said in his statement to police after the incident that he had a small window of opportunity??? after Ms. Jacobs fired to talk to her before she could reload and fire again. He said he had dealt with the Jacobs family years before and thought if she knew it was him, she might listen.
"I did not know the state of her sobriety or her ability to handle a weapon, so I was unsure how long it would take her to chamber another round," Const. Voller said in his statement.
"I took that opportunity to yell at her and call her by name, Connie, to put the gun down. She continued ... she brought the weapon down from the firing position to a position that was conducive with somebody reloading it and she didn't respond, she continued to what I thought was reload the weapon. I again took the opportunity to yell at her, I said Connie it's Const. Dave Voller, put the gun down, and she was completely oblivious to any ... she then raised the weapon in my direction and, as she shouldered the weapon I fired."
The Mountie who shot Connie Jacobs is expected to return to the Tsuu T'ina Nation today to testify at the inquiry into her death. Connie's brother, Brian Lambert, said yesterday he and other family members will be in the courtroom listening to Cpl. Dave Voller's testimony, hoping for more answers about how and why Connie and her son Ty, 9, died that snowy night in March 1998.
"It will be interesting to hear what he'll have to say," said Lambert. "He's one of the key guys and we have to hear from him."
Connie, 37, and Ty were killed March 22, 1998, in an ex-change of gunfire with Voller. Voller went to Jacobs' Tsuu T'ina home to assist social workers apprehending her four children and two grandchildren following a domestic dispute. Connie was on the porch of her home when she opened fire on Voller, with Ty standing unseen behind her. Shortly after the shooting, then-Const. Voller was transferred to Saltspring Island, off B.C.'s west coast, and promoted -- decisions made before the shooting, said RCMP officials.
Lambert said he doesn't expect coming face-to-face with Voller to be difficult. "I don't think there'll be a problem," he said. "It's one of those things you have to deal with."Lambert added he's more concerned about why the inquiry is moving off the reserve Thursday and into the Federal Court offices on 8 Ave. S.W., than about his personal feelings toward Voller. Tsuu T'ina band administrators lobbied hard to have the inquiry held on the reserve, so residents would be close to the process. But the inquiry has stretched far beyond its expected eight weeks and there was concern about it tying up space at the reserve's council chambers and the cost of remaining on the reserve.
TSUU T'INA RESERVE, Alta. (CP) - A veteran Mountie says he shot and killed Connie Jacobs on her front porch after she fired at him and tucked her rifle into her shoulder to take another shot.
"I yelled 'Connie, put the gun down,' " Dave Voller testified Tuesday at an inquiry into the death of the woman and her nine-year-old son Ty. He heard a muffled response ending in the words "my babies." "She raised the weapon in my direction for what I thought was bullet No. 2 and I returned fire. "The options were very limited."
Voller said pellets from his shotgun hit the woman and she fell backwards into the doorway of her home. The whole incident took just 90 seconds from when he arrived. "Prior to leaving I heard an infant crying in the background - just briefly."
He was called to the Jacobs home March 22, 1998, as backup for a tribal police officer and two child welfare workers attempting to apprehend four children and two grandchildren. Voller, 42, testified that he arrived at 7:20 p.m. to find the two "agitated" workers sitting in a vehicle in the Jacobs driveway. They shouted to him that the woman had a gun. When Jacobs pointed the rifle from about 10 metres away he told them to hide in their vehicle and called for backup. He hid behind his vehicle and grabbed his shotgun from the front seat.
He said Jacobs aimed her rifle several times before a shot rang out. He called out for tribal officer Const. Tammy Dodginghorse - who was crawling nearby in deep snow - but there was no response. When asked why he didn't leave the area, Voller said he thought Dodginghorse might be inside the Jacobs house.
He testified that he didn't use his 9-mm handgun because he felt it was more likely to injure the children inside. Several pellets from Voller's single shot sprayed Ty Jacobs, who was standing behind his mother inside the open front door. Voller said he didn't realize a child was nearby, although he was aware there were six children in the house.
Hersh Wolch, lawyer for the Assembly of First Nations, asked Voller if he would have dealt with the situation differently if it had been a Mafia hitman rather than a mother.
"Not if she's holding a high-powered rifle and pointing it at me, no," Voller replied.
Jacobs's brother, Brian Lambert, said he found the testimony very disturbing. The Tsuu T'ina band has accused the RCMP of racism but "through the evidence that's coming out he's just doing his job," Lambert said. "What else could he have done?"
A dispute between Jacobs and her husband, Hardy, erupted at the residence earlier in the day. Hardy was sent to hospital with a serious facial injury and paramedics alerted child welfare to the domestic dispute. An inebriated Jacobs chased the tribal police officer and the child welfare workers from the home at gunpoint. Earlier testimony revealed Dodginghorse lost sight of Jacobs when the mother fetched a rifle. The constable had focused on Voller's police cruiser coming up the driveway.
After the shooting, native people across the country lashed out at the RCMP, saying the incident carried racial undertones. A police investigation cleared Voller of wrongdoing and found no evidence of racism. RCMP policy dictates that Mounties can fire their guns only to "protect life or prevent grievous bodily harm."
Voller had accepted a promotion and transfer to Hinton, Alta., five days before the shooting. But those plans changed. After a brief stress leave he was transferred to Salt Spring Island, B.C., and promoted to corporal. He had worked in the Okotoks RCMP detachment for nine years, including almost 2½ years on this reserve.
The inquiry, headed by provincial court Judge
Thomas Goodson, is to
determine what happened and make recommendations on preventing future such
deaths. It can't lay blame. The inquiry will move off the reserve Thursday
to downtown Calgary.
© The Canadian Press, 1999
CALGARY -- Ty Jacobs retrieved and loaded the rifle his mother used to fire at RCMP Const. Dave Voller, statements provided by children in the house reveal. Government lawyer Phil Lister introduced the statements yesterday at the inquiry into the March 22, 1997 deaths of nine-year-old Ty and his mother, Connie Jacobs, 37. The pair were fatally wounded by a single blast from Voller's RCMP-issue shotgun after Connie fired at the officer from the porch of her Tsuu T'ina Nation home. The HEAVILY EDITED STATEMENTS from two of the five surviving children in the home provide the only evidence of what happened in the moments before Connie Jacobs' exchange of gunfire with Voller. One of the documents says Connie hustled the children to the basement in an attempt to hide them from child welfare workers and police attempting to apprehend them.
"The RCMP was gonna take us ... but Connie didn't want us to go," said one of the children in a statement given to RCMP Cpl.Craig Smith more than a year after the shootings. "Connie said all of us go downstairs," said the child, who cannot be identified.
"Ty got the gun and ... was like go find some bullets and we found some bullets and then - and then Connie, Connie, um, Connie didn't know how to, so Ty done it." Earlier testimony revealed Jacobs took the six children in the house - four of her own and two grandchildren - to the basement after social services workers and tribal police Const. Tammy Dodginghorse arrived at the home.
Because Jacobs was becoming agitated, Dodginghorse got the two social workers to go outside while she waited for Voller to arrive. As Dodginghorse stood at the threshold to the residence waiting for Voller, Jacobs came upstairs armed with a rifle. Dodginghorse ran for cover just as Voller, now an RCMP corporal stationed in B.C., arrived.
In one of the statements, the child says Connie could be heard talking to Ty after a shot rang out. "Connie said, 'Ty, don't fall asleep, Ty, don't fall asleep' and then and then, then, then, then, then, then that's all," the child said. "Then the cops came and took us."
The statement seems to clash with testimony last February by deputy chief medical examiner Dr. Lloyd Denmark, who said it would have been unlikely for mother and son to have exchanged dying words as both were hit by shotgun pellets in the mouth.
Voller testified last week he fired once at Jacobs after she shot at him and refused to put down her rifle.
The inquiry continues today.
An attempt to have Tsuu T'ina Nation financial records introduced to the Jacobs fatality inquiry was blocked yesterday by the judge overseeing the proceedings. Government lawyer Phil Lister attempted to subpoena financial records of the First Nation's housing, policing and social services departments to determine if there was a link between Tsuu T'ina policy and the shooting deaths of Ty and Connie Jacobs. But provincial court judge Thomas Goodson ruled against introducing the five years of records Lister requested, stating that ordering their introduction falls outside provincial jurisdiction. And he also said hearing from the relevant Tsuu T'ina witnesses would be too costly and time-consuming. Tsuu T'ina lawyer Don MacLeod argued the financial records would be irrelevant. "When you've got a person (Connie Jacobs) who's had a prior disposition to violence, what do financial records have to do with that?" he said outside court. The inquiry resumes today in federal court.
The tragic double-shooting by the RCMP of a mom and her son on the Tsuu T'ina Nation has claimed a third life, say band members. Social worker Loraine Duguay, who faced Connie Jacobs' gun shortly before the fatal shootout, died of a heart attack early yesterday.
"She suffered a massive heart attack at her home, and I believe she had passed away even before she reached the hospital," said band counsel member Marsha Erb. "It's pretty hard not to conclude this was brought about by the stress of the fatality inquiry. "This thing should be all over," she added. "All the time it's still going on, it's causing enormous stress for everyone, because no one can get any closure here." Erb said it's hard to see what further purpose could be served by stretching out the inquiry further. "We have already learned many lessons from what people have had to say," she said.
Duguay, then-director of the band's family and social services, and another social worker together with a tribal police constable, went to Jacobs' home March 22, 1998, to take away her children after a domestic dispute. After Jacobs pointed a rifle at the social workers, there was an exchange of gunfire between the mom and an RCMP officer. Jacobs and her son Ty, 9, were killed.
Erb paid tribute to Duguay. "Loraine's a very warm, loving person, and she carried a lot of other people's problems close to her heart," she said. The band was hoping lawyers would allow the fatality inquiry to adjourn Monday so funeral arrangements could be made.
To be continued....
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.
Special thanks to Ish of Ishgooda - Native News for forwarding these articles.
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This page created July 27,2000
