Accused gunman had dinner with parents night of Quebec mosque shooting, search warrants state
Catou MacKinnon | CBC News | Posted: October 27, 2017 11:06 PM | Last Updated: October 27, 2017
Unsealed warrants contain stories from witnesses, allegations have yet to be proven in court
In newly released search warrants, police allege accused gunman Alexandre Bissonnette had dinner with his parents and then told them he was going to a shooting range the same night as the Quebec City mosque shooting.
CBC and several media outlets obtained the right to reveal information police collected in order to obtain a search warrant for clothes Bissonnette allegedly wore the night of Jan. 29: a dark tuque with horizontal reflective stripes, a long dark coat, dark pants and beige hiking boots.
"You have what witnesses told police: what happened that night, what they saw, what they went through, what they heard," said Jean-François Côté, the lawyer representing the conglomerate of media outlets.
"It's the story as told by the witnesses."
All the information in the search warrants are allegations which have yet to be proven in court.
Bissonnette, who is charged with six counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder, is presumed innocent until he can answer the charges during his trial.
What witnesses say
According to the search warrants, when police entered the Quebec mosque around 8 p.m. on Jan. 29, there was white smoke, dozens of empty cartridges across the carpeted floor, blood and the smell of gunpowder lingering in the air.
Within minutes of arriving, officers had already counted four bodies.
The witnesses spoke to police just hours after the shooting, according to the search warrants.
They describe hearing the first shots around 7:45 p.m., just after the end of the evening prayers. Some describe them as firecrackers and others heard them as knocking. One man said he heard "tac, tac, tac" and then saw people running.
The witnesses all describe the gunman as white, 5-5" and in his 20s or 30s.
According to the witnesses, the gunman shot two people before entering the mosque. He then shot at several others, and killed or severely injured three men who tried to stop him.
Azzedine Soufiane, 57, was killed after he tried to disarm the gunman. Aymen Derbali, 41, suffered multiple gunshot wounds and spent more than six months in hospital.
A man who lives near the mosque said he saw the suspect run away on foot.
Parents spoke to police
The search warrants reveal Bissonnette's parents told police their son owned two guns: a Glock and a Sig Sauer, which were both kept at the parents' home.
Police verified Bissonnette was a member of the Castors de Charlesbourg, a shooting club which has a firing range in downtown Quebec City.
Bissonnette's mother said he ate dinner with them and said he was heading to the firing range. The last time she heard from her son, she said he told her the gun club was closed.
The search warrants reveal he was driving his father's car and had a Glock pistol inside the night of the shooting. Police read Bissonnette his rights and arrested him for murder and attempted murder an hour later.