WARNING: This story contains graphic details of a violent event.
The story of a paramedic to reach a fatal shooting that assumed that it was safe when, in fact, the shooter remained in the scene will be questioned this week in the trial of a man who killed a police officer and wounded two others during a well -being check in the bureauOntario
It is not in dispute that Alain Bellefeuille will kill Sergeant OPP. Eric Mueller and the injured agents Marc Lauzon and François Gamache-Asselin before dawn on May 11, 2023.
In question, I knew he was shooting the police and if he was acting in self -defense when he opened fire repeatedly.
Bellefeuille is in trial in the Superior Court in L’Orignal for first -degree murder and two positions of murder attempt, and declared himself innocent. It is expected to testify in its own defense after the crown closes its case.
One of the first four paramedics to arrive at the house of Bellefeuille, Christian Larochelle, who was accompanied that night by Stéphane Hupé, Yan Bellefeuille and Jean-François Fillion, testified on Friday about walking to the house, thinking that the scene had secured.
Instead, Larochelle found Bellefeuille standing on the deck with his arms up. Mueller was bleeding in the bathroom with the long gun loaded with Bellefeuille placed on his chest. Lauzon was on his knees on the grass, and Gamache-Asselin hid in the forest, thinking that someone was trying to follow him and kill him, the trial he previously heard.
Lauzon did not answer Larochelle’s questions about whether the scene was safe. His eyes were open but his arm was torn. Larochelle then approached the deck.
‘He broke into my house’
More video of the Mueller camera was reproduced on the court. He was covered by something, but Bellefeuille is heard saying: “A police officer is down. A police officer is down here. He is breathing. A police officer is here inside, he enters, enters. He is inside the house, he is still breathing. He is still breathing.”
“Are you alone here?” Larochelle asks Bellefeuille.
“I’m alone.”
“Is there another officer?”
“He broke into my house. He entered, that’s all. He’s still breathing,” says Bellefeuille.
“Do not move, do not move. Is there anyone else at home? I want you to go back, please. Please, go back.”
Larochelle testified that Mueller had lost a serious amount of blood, and that he knew that the perspective for him was not good. He also knew that he and the other paramedics were not safe, but “at that time, it was too late.”
They loaded Mueller in an ambulance, and when Larochelle was about to start driving, his partner shouted that Mueller’s heart had stopped. They started the CPR and continued with him for the 40 -minute trip to the trauma center of the Civic Campus of the Ottawa hospital. But not long after they arrived, Mueller was declared dead.
Even more videos of the Mueller camera showed that he threw himself into the grass.
The trial resumed last week after a pause
The trial resumed on April 22 after being postponed for a week.
Last week, OPP const. Justin Boyd testified about going to Bellefeuille’s house in Bourget after listening to the radio that shot the officers, and about the role he played in the search in the area and transporting Bellefeuille to an OPP detachment and the Montfort hospital in Ottawa.
When Boyd arrived, it wasn’t clear where Lauzon and Gamache-Asselin were.
Mueller was under the care of paramedics, and unknown to Boyd and other officers at the scene, as did Lauzon.
Confused scene, ‘chaotic’
When Boyd and others began to talk about how to find them, the situation became “quite chaotic,” Boyd testified. The officers finally aligned on the shoulder to the shoulder and pushed the forest to search before deciding that the land was too difficult for an injured person to hide.
When they left again, Boyd found the worn camera of Mueller’s body lying in the grass, still recording.
A camera video clip was reproduced on the Boyd Finding It court, in which a shot is also heard.
Constant Ionut Mihuta, who had arrested Bellefeuille, heard ask: “Did you fire your weapon?”
“Find! Find, fail,” says Boyd, speaking for his colleague const. Pierre Dubois, who had accidentally fired his long gun to the ground once Boyd’s sight.
“Verify that way,” says Mihuta. “Go straight!
Bellefeuille repeatedly beaten by the arrest officer
More official flooded the scene, and Lauzon and Gamache-Asselin were found, Boyd said. He was then asked to help Bellefeuille take the Rockland OPP detachment.
In a cell, the paramedics reviewed injuries to Bellefeuille and took a long time examining a bruise on their head. The court heard on April 14 that Mihuta had violated the police protocol by repeatedly hitting Bellefeuille while Bellefeuille was lying on the ground and said he did not know that he had shot a policeman.
The audio of the Dramatic Exchange was captured in the chamber used by the body of Mihuta.
Mihuta shouted Bellefeuille: “I have this shotgun in your f-!
When asked about hitting Bellefeuille in interrogation, Mihuta testified that his emotions obtained the best of him and that he did not mean his threat to shoot Bellefeuille.
“She knew that Sergeant Mueller might not live. She knew at that time that in the next two hours, a wife will receive the worst news of her life, that her husband will not return home. Two children will be orphaned without a father,” he testified.
“We don’t shoot people in our work. We don’t.
Emotional trip to the hospital
The paramedics finally decided to take Bellefeuille to the hospital for examination and treatment.
During the interrogation of Boyd, defense lawyer Leonardo Russomanno touched video images of the Boyd camera used by the body that represents about 20 minutes of the ambulance trip to the Montfort hospital. It shows Bellefeuille from behind while sitting hunched in a stretcher in just his underwear (the paramedics had removed their clothes), with their hand handcuffed behind his back. A paramedic tries to ask questions, but no discernible answers are heard.
Bellefeuille seems to cry several times, his shoulders going down and down, and occasionally the paramedic places a hand on his shoulder.
Judge Robert Pelletier instructed the jury that he only considered Bellefeuille’s physical and emotional state in the video, which could become relevant in Pelletier’s final instructions for the jury before the deliberations.
The next witness of the crown was the OPP Forensic Identification Official Brittany Falls, who helped document and catalog the scene and the evidence found. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the jury showed photos of the clay hall with the floor soaked with blood where Mueller was found.
The Bellefeuille bedroom wall was also shown with nine bullet holes (he shot Mueller and Lauzon from inside the bedroom), a box of ammunition in his closet, the window of his living room with bullet holes, two OPP cruises with holes in them, milling passed from the weapon of the house of Bellefeuille inside and outside the house, and three passes from a house in the house.
It was discovered that Lauzon’s lateral burning was missing three rounds, Falls testified.
The trial continues on Tuesday with the interrogation of the paramedic he testified on Friday.
