The wife of an Alberta Mountie who was gravely wounded in a weekend shooting says her family is “saying goodbye” to him.
“Today is the day that we say goodbye to Dave,” a tearful Shelly MacInnis-Wynn told a brief news conference Monday.
RCMP Const. David Matthew Wynn, a 42-year-old father of three, was shot in the head at close range while investigating a report of a stolen vehicle at a casino in St. Albert, Alta., on Saturday.
On Sunday, the RCMP said that he had not regained consciousness and was not expected to survive.
Wynn’s partner, Auxiliary Const. Derek Walter Bond, 49, was shot in the arm and torso and is now receiving medical care at home.
Flanked by two family members and RCMP Deputy Commissioner Marianne Ryan, MacInnis-Wynn said she wanted to thank everyone for their support since the shooting.
She singled out the “RCMP family” and her husband’s colleagues in the St. Albert detachment.
“I was told…when Dave graduated how much support we would have through his whole career, but I never really knew until now, I never really knew what type of a family the RCMP were. And they are just unbelievable,” she said.
“We’re saying our goodbyes today. And then, from there, he’ll be in a better place.”
Wynn's sister, Dawn Sephton, thanked the doctors and nurses in Edmonton who cared for her “little brother.”
“As a family I would ask you to continue to support and respect the RCMP and the phenomenal job that they do in the service of all Canadians,” she said.
The man who police say shot the two officers, Shawn Maxwell Rehn, was found dead in an empty home in a rural area. An autopsy was conducted Monday to determine his cause of death.
‘Complex criminal history’
Court records show Rehn, 34, had a long and violent criminal record that spanned his adult life.
Since the age of 18, Rehn had amassed convictions for assaults, break-ins, theft, possession of stolen property and various weapons charges. He received more than a dozen jail sentences, but it’s not clear how much time he actually spent behind bars. In 2001, he was placed under a 10-year firearms prohibition.
Rehn also had more than 20 outstanding criminal charges since October 2013, including fraud, resisting a peace officer, breach of recognizance and possession of a controlled substance.
The parole board described Rehn as a dangerous person with a blatant disregard for the law. Court documents show that the mother of one of his children got a restraining order against him after he assaulted her.
Police said Rehn was carrying a handgun when he shot the Mounties in the early morning hours on Saturday. The officers did not return fire.
A visibly upset RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson told reporters on Sunday that Rehn was well known to police for his "incredibly complex criminal history."
"I can describe a veritable labyrinth of charges he was facing, of recognizances he was under, of overlapping firearm prohibitions -- just a series of conditions that aren’t making sense to me as I review it, and I've been in policing for 30 years," he said.
"I have not seen anything the likes of what I've seen here," he added.
Paulson said police are looking into why Rehn was free in the community, given his extensive criminal background and outstanding charges.
With a report from CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife and files from The Canadian Press
