Mayerthorpe tragedy
The Rochfort Bridge massacre occured on March 3, 2005 on the property of James Roszko in Rochfort Bridge, Alberta northwest of Edmonton. With a rapid-fire auto carbine rifle, Roszko shot and killed Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constables Peter Schiemann, Anthony Gordon, Lionide Johnston, and Brock Myrol as the officers were executing a drug raid on the farm. This was the largest casualty toll for the RCMP in a single operation since the Northwest Rebellion in 1885.
The officers had been ambushed inside a Quonset shed on the farm and were only armed with handguns - they apparently had not been expecting an armed confrontation, believing that Roszko was not on the property. After losing radio contact with the officers, emergency response teams from the RCMP, Edmonton and Calgary city police and the military's Edmonton Garrison were called in, and the airspace over the property was closed. The four officers and Roszko were all found fatally shot; it is not clear whether Roszko was shot by one of the RCMP officers or if he committed suicide.
James Roszko
James Roszko (1959? - March 3, 2005) was a Canadian man who at the time of the massacre was operating a hydroponic marijuana grow-op in Rochfort Bridge, Alberta.
Roszko was said to have had a history of criminal and drug-related offences, and members of the nearby Mayerthorpe community interviewed in a CBC story the day following the incident described him as a 'dangerous recluse'.