(OTTAWA) Thousands of people gathered in Ottawa on Thursday to pay their respects to OPP Sergeant Eric Mueller, who last week became the tenth police officer killed on duty in Canada in eight months.
Among the crowd were the widow of the shot policeman, relatives and friends, but also police officers from across Canada who had never met their brother in arms.
Constable Mueller and two other colleagues were shot last Thursday after approaching a residence at 2 a.m. in the small town of Bourget, east of Ottawa, after neighbors heard gunshots.
Mr. Mueller died later that day in an Ottawa hospital, while the other two officers were injured. One of them is still in serious but stable condition.
PHOTO SPENCER COLBY, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Police on motorcycles surround the hearse carrying the body of Sergeant Mueller.
The Premier of Ontario, the Lieutenant Governor and the Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) spoke at the funeral service at the Canadian Tire Center in Kanata, home of the Ottawa Senators. The dignitaries shared their shock and disbelief at this new death of a police officer in Canada in such a short time.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE BY THE CANADIAN PRESS
Sergeant Eric Mueller
The officer’s brother-in-law, Chris Wood, has spoken of Eric Mueller as a loving father to his daughter, who is almost two years old, and his son, who is just nine months old. He described the great joy that Mr. Mueller could derive from the simple pleasures of life, with his wife, Marie-France Éthier: gardening, building projects around the house, cooking meals and getting together as a family.
Mr. Mueller’s coffin was carried in a procession from Rockland, a community near Bourget, to Kanata, in western Ottawa. Citizens stood on the overpasses as the hearse passed. Hundreds of police officers from across the country marched solemnly past the Canadian Tire Center on Thursday morning as the sound of ceremonial bagpipes drowned out the helicopters.
The perils of the job
Eric Mueller is the fifth police officer fatally shot in the line of duty in Ontario since September 2022.
“We have to ask ourselves: ‘If our police, the very people we rely on for our safety, are not safe, then who is? ‘” OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique said at the ceremony.
PHOTO SPENCER COLBY, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Police officers question their willingness to risk their lives, he said, while others are afraid to become police officers. “We must maintain trust in the police by standing up to those who unfairly defame the very protectors who are devoted to us, and in some cases who give their lives, serve and protect us. »
Ontario Premier Doug Ford told Mueller’s colleagues how sorry he was for their pain. “I want you to know that attacks on police officers will never be tolerated in this province,” he said.
At the end of the ceremony, Commissioner Carrique presented Constable Mueller’s wife with the Ontario flag that covered the officer’s casket and cap.
After the service, members of his detachment in Russell County formed a guard of honor for a final salute as the casket was driven back to Rockland.
The funeral service was closed to the public, but streamed online. The OPP had also arranged for the service to be broadcast live at a community center in Bourget, where Constable Mueller was killed, and planned to write a book of condolences for local residents to sign.
The accused appeared on Thursday
Eric Mueller joined the OPP in 2002 as Special Constable in charge of Offender Transportation in Ottawa. He had been officially hired as a rookie in 2006 and was promoted to sergeant in 2018.
He was recognized for bravery in 2015 with the Commissioner’s Citation for Rescue, after helping lift a burning vehicle to rescue an injured suspect.
The OPP repeatedly described last Thursday’s tragedy as an “ambush” but offered no further details about what happened after Constable Mueller and his colleagues arrived on the scene.
Alain Bellefeuille, a 39-year-old resident of Bourget, is charged with one count of first degree murder and two counts of attempted murder in connection with this case. He made a brief appearance by videoconference on Thursday in L’Orignal, about fifty kilometers east of Bourget.
The Special Investigations Unit, the “police of the police” in Ontario, is investigating as the OPP forensic team uncovered evidence that one of the surviving police officers fired his weapon during this event. .