Fort Smith RCMP are still trying to locate two of four guns involved in a series of crimes, including a fatal shooting, March 4.
The RCMP provided a monthly report presentation to Fort Smith council March 15, the first since a community-wide shelter in place order was put in place to find the perpetrator of the killing of Jordan Tourangeau.
The NWT RCMP Major Crimes Unit have confirmed the fatality is being treated as a homicide in Fort Smith on March 4 was a homicide — the result of a fatal shooting.
Investigation into the matter continues, however, RCMP are not actively looking for any further subjects of interest.
A 17-year old was arrested on March 6 and subsequently charged with two counts of breaking and entering: once at the GNWT Department of Lands office and once at a private residence.
He was also charged with one count of careless use of a firearm “relating to an incident where shots were fired at a residence in Fort Smith,” according to a news release issued March 9 by RCMP.
He had also been wanted in the theft of firearms and a GNWT vehicle.
The individual, who can no longer be named because he is a youth, is the only person arrested in connection with the incident, to date.
Fort Smith RCMP detachment commander Sgt Geoffrey Peters told town council March 15 that investigative work is still being done on locating the weapons from the incident.
“Our major crimes unit and forensic identification unit are still actively working on it,” he said.
“Two of the four guns have been located and were done so very recently by members of the public. So they’ve been secured and sent along to our forensic team.”
Peters added that the remaining firearms are likely to be found after the snow melts.
“We don’t think that they’re anywhere terribly far away,” he said.
Failure to comply with probation
RCMP reported earlier this month that the accused had initially failed to comply with a probation order on Feb. 26 before the series of crimes took place.
Peters was asked by Cynthia White, senior administrative officer about the amount of work the police put into looking for the offender.
“I just think it’s really important for the community to be aware of the efforts police put into trying to locate somebody who has a warrant, particularly somebody who may have a warrant for a violent offense,” White said.
Peters said the time and effort in the search was “fairly significant.”
“It was lots of contacts, lots of door knocks, lots of people being asked,” he said. “Unfortunately, it appears that there were other people that were preventing us from locating that person. We’d like to say we made a lot of efforts.”
— with files from Ethan Butterfield