Michel Vienneau fiancée says she wondered if Bathurst shooting was terror attack

The fiancée of an innocent man fatally shot by a member of the Bathurst Police Force four years ago says she thought the shooting was a terrorist attack. 

"I heard the gunshots — it didn't seem to want to stop," Annick Basque said in testimony in French. She testified she thought it was a terrorist attack because of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack that had happened days earlier in Paris.

Basque was the first of 17 witnesses expected to testify at an arbitration hearing for Bathurst police constables Patrick Bulger and Mathieu Boudreau. 

The Bathurst police chief has recommended the two be fired, and the hearing will determine what discipline they face because of their actions Jan. 12, 2015, at the Bathurst train station. 

That's where Basque and her fiancé, Michel Vienneau, a 51-year-old Tracadie businessman, arrived by train from a weekend trip to watch a hockey game in Montreal. 

Boudreau and Bulger were at the train station waiting for Vienneau that day based on a Crime Stoppers tip that he was bringing "a load of drugs" back on the train from Montreal. The tip was false.

She said that when they arrived from Montreal, they placed a backpack with clothes in Vienneau's vehicle, and he cleaned snow and ice off his car. She saw two men in a car next to them who appeared to be having an argument. 

When Vienneau got in his car and began backing up to leave the train station parking lot, the vehicle with the two men also began to move. She told Vienneau to allow them to drive away first, but she testified the passenger in the car jumped out. 

Basque said the man then fell. She then saw him again with a gun in his hand. 

"I said, 'Are they crazy? They have a gun,'" Basque said, adding she couldn't hear what the person was saying. 

Vienneau forced her down under his car's dashboard and started to move his vehicle to try to drive around the man and the other vehicle. Then she heard gunshots.

She testified Vienneau accelerated the car and hit a snowbank.

Boudreau's lawyer, T.J. Burke, challenged her recollection of events and had her read from her statement to police.

Burke and lawyer Brian Munro, representing Bulger, said Vienneau ran over Bulger before Boudreau fired the shots. 

Basque said she did not see that and the only collision she recalls was hitting a snowbank.

Photos were shown of Vienneau's damaged car, which Basque attributed to hitting the snow. The officers' lawyers asked if she saw flashing police lights or police badges. She said she didn't. 

Asked to identify the driver of the other car in the hearing room, she pointed out Bulger. Throughout the hearing, Bulger was said to be the passenger who stepped out of the car. 

An investigation found Bulger and Boudreau breached five counts of the New Brunswick Police Act: they didn't properly use and carry a firearm, they abused authority, neglected their duty and acted in a discreditable manner. They deny the allegations.

Basile Chiasson, the lawyer representing the Bathurst police chief in the hearing, has said the hearing is necessary to air the facts about what happened that day and restore the force's reputation. 

In an opening statement, he said the two constables created an "urgent and mortal danger situation" to Vienneau and Basque based on their conduct. 

"They were — and only them — the authors of this entire tragedy," Chiasson said, adding if they felt they were in danger it was only  because they created that situation. 

Chiasson told arbitrator Joël Michaud that 17 witnesses are expected to be called during the hearing expected to run until Oct. 25. 

Gerald Jean of Petit-Rocher was the second witness Thursday. He was picking up his mother at the train station. He testified he saw a man who seemed to be trying to getting away from a white car in the parking lot before the car hit a snowbank and the man fired at the car four times.

But it was revealed during cross-examination that his testimony departed from what he had told police just after the shooting. His police statement indicated he knew that the person firing was a police officer, and that it looked like the white car was trying to run down the officer.

Joe Sutton, one of the two Via Rail engineers on the train, said he heard a commotion while standing on the platform. He looked over and saw people surrounding a white car. 

"'Stop, stop, don't move, stay right there,'" Sutton testified he heard before the white car started to pull away. Just before or as the car hit a snowbank, he heard gunshots, he said. 

Sutton in his police statement after the shooting said he realized the people around the white car were police before the shots because he saw a female with cuffs and a badge on another person.

Chiasson also said that next week, he plans to call as witnesses three RCMP investigators involved in a subsequent investigation of the shooting. Other Bathurst officers who were at the train station at the time of the shooting are also expected to be called to testify. 

Testimony was expected to start Wednesday but was delayed a day after the officers fired their lawyers. They told Michaud they wanted an adjournment of the hearing to give them time to secure new legal representation.

Chiasson opposed the request, and Michaud decided Wednesday afternoon the hearing would go ahead Thursday. It resumed with news the officers had rehired the lawyers after discussions with their union. 

Michaud will decide based on the evidence presented at the hearing what discipline the officers could face. His decision is binding, though it is subject to judicial review.

Both Bulger and Boudreau were suspended with pay from the police force after the charges were laid. They returned to work in February 2018 but were suspended again with pay in June 2018 after a settlement conference.

Chiasson indicated on Wednesday that a coroner's inquest into the shooting is also expected to occur after the arbitration hearing is complete.