Aaron Driver, an ISIS sympathizer under a peace bond, was killed Wednesday night by police responding to a terror threat in the small southern Ontario town of Strathroy.
RCMP told Driver’s family that police shot the 24-year-old after he detonated a device that injured himself and one other person, CBC News has learned. It’s not clear who the injured person is.
Police told the family they had to shoot Driver because he had another device and planned to detonate it. A senior police official told Canadian Press Wednesday the suspect allegedly planned to use a bomb to carry out a suicide mission in a public area.
The deadly confrontation occurred while RCMP were conducting an operation in a residential southwestern Ontario neighbourhood of Strathroy on Wednesday evening after it said credible information of a potential terrorist act was received earlier in the day.
“A suspect was identified and the proper course of action has been taken to ensure that there is no danger to the public’s safety,” according to an RCMP statement
“As this is still an unfolding matter and that the investigation is still underway, we are not able to provide further comment at this time.”
ISIS supporter on peace bond
Driver, a known ISIS supporter, agreed to the conditions of a peace bond in a Winnipeg court earlier this year after being arrested in June 2015.
By agreeing to the peace bond, Driver was “consenting or acknowledging that there are reasonable grounds to fear that he may participate, contribute — directly or indirectly — in the activity of a terrorist group.”
He first caught the attention of CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, in October 2014 when he was tweeting support for the militant group ISIS under the alias Harun Abdurahman. He has also said the Parliament Hill attack in October of that year by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was justified
Driver’s former lawyer, Leonard Tailleur, told CBC News there was no evidence Driver was directly affiliated with ISIS or any other organization.
“It’s shocking. Absolutely shocking, actually,” Tailleur, who handled Driver’s peace bond process, said of Driver’s death and the circumstances surrounding it. “He was generally looked to be low risk as long as there’s certain things that had been dealt with.”
Among the conditions of the peace bond was living at a specified address in Strathroy and notifying a specified RCMP sergeant of any changes in address.
What’s more, Driver was most likely under regular police surveillance, Tailleur said.
“If he was doing his thing, it was kind of ridiculous because I’m certain he was going to be under scrutiny beyond his peace bond,” Tailleur said. “Police would always monitor his whereabouts. … They’d make him a priority.”
Taking all relevant information into account, the national terrorism threat level for Canada remains at “medium” where it has stood since the fall of 2014, Goodale added.
The RCMP said there would be no immediate further comment.
The Mounties planned to hold a news conference on Thursday to provide details.
Residents told to stay inside
In Strathroy, homes on either side of the suspect’s house were evacuated Wednesday night and other neighbours were told to stay inside.
Mark and Julie Lagerwerf have been living in the area for 20 years. They’d just come home from grocery shopping when they found their street blocked by police cruisers. Officers told them to go inside their home and stay there.
“It’s surreal. I don’t know how else to describe it. Shocking,” Mark Lagerwerf said. “Like a Bond movie or a Bourne movie, stuff you’d see in Hollywood.”
Resident Irene Lee said late Wednesday that police had been camped out near her parents’ convenience store since about 4:15 p.m.
At about that time, she said, she was at her home close by when she heard a loud noise. She said shortly afterward, a police officer came by to tell residents to stay inside their homes.
Lee said there were up to 25 marked and unmarked cruisers outside a home on Park Street, which is right behind her parents’ store.
Strathroy, home to about 20,000 people, is 40 kilometres west of London.
Ottawa was abuzz with rumours for much of Wednesday after a memo was circulated among National Defence personnel warning of a terrorist threat.
The internal government memo included a photo of a man wearing a balaclava. It was not clear if the man in the balaclava was Driver.(CBC News)
Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/terror-threat-arrest-rcmp-1.3715969
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