Moncton shooting suspect’s friend

Moncton shooting suspect’s friend charged with uttering death threats, Inside the Moncton shooting suspect’s white and brown mobile home are action figures in military camouflage and toy cars still in their plastic packaging lined atop a television set. There are also several heavy metal music posters – including one for the band Anthrax, featuring skulls – and a large red, white and blue Confederate flag.

It was garbage day on Monday, but the trash outside suspect Justin Bourque’s home remained, cereal boxes and takeout containers overflowing from trash cans set between wilted dandelions and blue wildflowers growing in the long grass. With the police presence at the Pioneer Avenue trailer park dissipated, and as residents prepared to attend a public visitation for the three fallen officers, a friend of the accused was charged on Monday with uttering death threats to law enforcement officers.

Tracy Petukhov, a friend and former employer of Mr. Stam, said he was close with the shooting suspect and a group of other young men. Like Mr. Bourque, he was homeschooled and from a large, religious family, she said. She said conversations with Mr. Stam over the past year turned from normal to bizarre, adding that he believed police ambushed Mr. Bourque, not vice versa. Mr. Stam’s Facebook page includes posts defending the shooting suspect and, like Mr. Bourque’s online presence, shows anti-police sentiment.

On Monday, hundreds of mourners streamed into a public visitation at a Moncton celebration centre, paying their respects to Constables David Ross, Douglas Larche and Fabrice Gévaudan. Their caskets were draped with Canadian flags and topped with Stetson hats.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Governor-General David Johnston, RCMP officers, the victims’ families and untold local mourners will descend on the Moncton Coliseum on Tuesday for a regimental funeral and law enforcement parade. Aside from Mr. Bourque’s mobile home, the police presence was also lifted at the place where he was arrested early on Friday, a wooded area along a fence at the back of residential backyards.

Mr. Stam, who describes himself on social media as a 24-year-old musician, baker and anarchist, has defended Mr. Bourque in some of his Facebook postings.

“Justin had no mental illness. he did not do hard drugs. he did not do anyone who deserved respect any wrong. Not ever,” Mr. Stam posted on the weekend, alluding to Mr. Bourque. In an apparent reference to police, Mr. Stam added that Mr. Bourque did not “pretend to be above others” as the “pigs do downtown and on the roads.”