2 Edmonton police officers were gunned down 6 months ago. Investigators are keeping mum

Six months ago, two Edmonton police officers were shot to death as they knocked on the door of an apartment in the city's northwest. The alleged shooter, a 16-year-old boy, also shot his mother before turning the gun on himself. 

The dramatic and tragic events of March 16 captured the attention of the city and the country. But as the province's annual Police and Peace Officers' Memorial Day approaches on Sept. 24, the investigation has long since gone quiet, at least outwardly.

By the time of the March 27 funeral for the two officers — Travis Jordan, 35, and Brett Ryan, 30 — the last public update on March 23 had already come and gone.

"There is no update to share at this time," an EPS spokesperson said in an email response this week.

A rare occurrence

Police officers are killed relatively rarely in Alberta. In the past decade, six law enforcement personnel have died on the job: three EPS officers, two RCMP members and one from the Calgary Police Service.

By comparison, from 2013 to 2022 there have been 407 homicides in the Edmonton CMA according to Statistics Canada — although that doesn't include deaths resulting from non-criminal use of police force. There have been at least 24 deaths involving police use of force since 2013.

Nevertheless, police deaths draw tremendous public attention, in part because of their infrequency. The funeral for Jordan and Ryan was highly visible event, including a procession through downtown and a televised ceremony from Rogers Place.

It was also expensive: according to a freedom of information request by CBC News, EPS spent more than $400,000 on expenses "directly related to planning, family support (including travel to Edmonton), and event related expenses (venue operating costs, live broadcast, etc.)."

Oilers Entertainment Group provided the use of Rogers Place at no cost. 

The City of Edmonton also spent more than $177,000 on transit bus charters and procession route preparation and clean up.

That the case would go from highly public to strictly under wraps is not surprising according to Dan Jones, a former EPS inspector who now teaches criminology at NorQuest College.

"Policing is an interesting animal," he said. "Transparency is an expectation. That being said, investigative integrity takes precedence over transparency."

While he doesn't have any insight into this specific investigation, Jones says investigators often need to withhold information, whether to avoid disrupting sensitive leads or to avoid skewing public perception before the facts are known.

'Apples to oranges to cherries'

The last EPS officer killed while on-duty was Const. Daniel Woodall in 2015. Woodall was shot while a group of officers were using a ram to break down a suspect's door in order to execute an arrest warrant. The suspect later shot himself after setting his house on fire.

Multiple investigations and reports followed this incident. The first was the EPS operational review, which essentially investigated what happened, and what internal policy changes could prevent similar incidents.

That report was completed just over four months after Woodall's death, and the Provincial Court judge who later conducted the public fatality inquiry called it "exhaustive" and "comprehensive."

But Jones cautions against equating investigations, saying no two are exactly alike.

"Comparing investigations is like comparing apples to oranges to cherries," he said.

"I would never compare those cases … because there are so many tentacles of an investigation."

Multiple crime scenes

Temitope Oriola, a criminologist at the University of Alberta, said he hasn't studied how long criminal investigations typically take to complete.

"Nonetheless, my observation over the years is that investigation of tragic deaths of officers in the line of duty is generally concluded faster than average and usually takes less than a year," he said.

"The death of the perpetrator during such an attack should hasten things."

However, Jones doesn't believe that the duration of a case hinges on whether a cop is a victim.

Police said in March that the 16 year old involved in the shooting is also believed to be responsible for shooting an employee at a Pizza Hut four days earlier.

Having two related incidents spread over two crime scenes on two different days may well complicate the investigative process, according to Jones — at the very least, it compounds the work to be done before closing the case.

He adds that TV dramas have given the public an unreasonable idea of police investigations.

"It's usually solved within an hour, everyone's wrapped up and everyone's gone home," says Jones.

"That is not at all the reality."