Sanderson investigation will have lasting impact on officers, former RCMP investigator says

Even though Myles Sanderson was caught and died in police custody on Wednesday, the police investigation is not over.

There are still many unanswered questions about the man accused in the James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon stabbing massacre.

Bruce Pitt-Payne, a former RCMP major crimes investigator, said any information being released from authorities is going to be extremely limited.

“Probably the best bet to find anything out would be from a coroner’s inquest, if there is one,” he said.

But, Pitt-Payne said, the work on the investigation will not stop as police will try to find out if Sanderson received any help to evade police and try to find out the motive behind the stabbings that left 10 people dead.

There could be some other legal action that is taken, he said, even though there won’t be a prosecution.

“There could be civil liability,” he said. “You never know if there’s going to be a lawsuit that’s launched.”

Pitt-Payne said the outcome of Wednesday’s events will take a mental toll on the officers involved.

“I can’t even fathom to think what is going through the minds and the hearts of the members that actually apprehended Myles Sanderson, and to learn that he had died afterward, the poor souls that had to do CPR on him. This is going to have a huge toll on their emotional life as well as mental health,” Pitt-Payne said.

An in-custody death can be a lot to handle, he noted, and it can take days, weeks or even years in some cases for officers to get past those moments.

“As a human being, to have somebody die in front of you, basically it doesn’t matter who they are. It hurts. It would probably be like getting punched in the stomach,” he said.

There could also be some indirect trauma to other members, Pitt-Payne added, as well as people who experienced anything similar to what happened in the past week.

“Doesn’t matter where you are, members will be triggered by this,” said Pitt-Payne, who retired in 2017 on a medical pension following his own battle with PTSD.

“I retired as a person that at least can accept what has happened and who I am, and accept that I’m a changed person from when I joined,” Pitt-Payne said, adding that it took him 15 years to get the help he needed.

He said a lot of what officers saw during this case was something humans should never see outside of a movie screen, and that trauma can have lasting effects on someone’s emotional health and well-being.

Pitt-Payne said officers are just as curious as the public to figure out why these stabbings happened. Everyone wants to understand, he said, which is why they will continue to investigate and search for any clues that could help bring some closure to victims and their families.