OTTAWA -- Canadians are getting a clearer picture of the suspect arrested after an armed breach of the Rideau Hall grounds last week -- though many questions remain unanswered.
The suspect, Corey Hurren, was arrested on July 2 and is facing 22 different charges in relation to the incident, including threatening to cause death or bodily harm to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Newly released court documents have provided details about these charges, including that Hurren was allegedly armed with two shotguns, a rifle and a revolver when he rammed through the gates of Rideau Hall.
Police say his truck broke down shortly after entering the Governor General's official estate, which is where the prime minister and his family have been living amid planned renovations to 24 Sussex Drive.
The prime minister, his family, and the Governor General were not present on the property at the time of the attack.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE SUSPECT
Corey Hurren, 46, is a resident of Bowsman, Man., and an active-duty reservist with the Canadian Rangers.
CTV News Winnipeg visited his hometown on Friday, where they confirmed he was known in the community due to his 10 years spent working in the meat department of a co-op grocery store in nearby Swan River.
Mintonas-Bowsman Reeve Walter Pacamaniuk told CTV News Winnipeg that people in the area were "shocked" by the news.
"I didn't know what to think," Pacamaniuk said.
While one of the charges laid against Hurren had to do with threats made against Trudeau, the other 21 were all related to weapons. Hurren is alleged to have had a prohibited M-14 rifle with him when he rammed onto the property where Trudeau and his family have been living, in addition to two shotguns and a revolver made by Hi-Standard.
The recently released court documents indicate he had a licence for the now-prohibited rifle – though the license did not allow him to possess the rifle on the grounds of Rideau Hall -- but he did not have a license for the revolver. Hurren is also accused of having a prohibited, unlicensed high-capacity magazine in his possession.
Hurren runs a small business selling meat products in Manitoba. The social media pages he operates for the business provide more insight into the suspect accused of threatening the prime minister's life.
One post from November, 2019 says Hurren is a "Royal Canadian Artillery veteran" who had "recently rejoined the military as a Canadian Ranger."
A post from May 26 indicates that Hurren had been a member of the Rangers for over a year and was "up with the Gillam Patrol during the manhunt last summer." It also claims he was one of the military volunteers on call with Operation LASER, Canada's military response to COVID-19.
However, recent posts from the account take a darker turn. His business' social media pages shared a conspiracy theory about COVID-19 on both Facebook and Instagram at 6:05 a.m. on July 2. The Rideau Hall security breach happened 35 minutes later.
The conspiracy theory the pages shared tells followers to Google "Event 201" in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. The four-time Webby award-winning fact check site, FactCheck.org, has thoroughly debunked the theory, which distorted facts about an emergency preparedness exercise in order to suggest that Bill Gates and other global "elites" predicted millions of deaths from COVID-19 before the virus had even emerged.
In reality, all that took place was a 3.5-hour pandemic tabletop exercise in which the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security simulated a series of "dramatic, scenario-based facilitated discussions, confronting difficult, true-to-life dilemmas associated with response to a hypothetical, but scientifically plausible, pandemic," according to their website.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, World Economic Forum, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recommended changes to better prepare the world in the event of a global pandemic as a result of the exercise -- but the scenario in no way forecasted details of the exact scenario currently gripping the world, as the conspiracy theory claims.
A little over half an hour after his social media pages shared the memes, police say Hurren was on the grounds of Rideau Hall, and before 7:00 a.m. the RCMP began its "constant dialogue" with the suspect. He was brought in for questioning just before 8:30 a.m. and was arrested "without incident."
RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mike Duheme told reporters on Friday that police were not aware of, or monitoring, Hurren prior to the incident.
Hurren is currently being held in custody pending his court date on July 17.
With files from CTV News' Sarah Turnbull, CTV News Winnipeg's Touria Izri and The Canadian Press
