Roszko shot himself in chest: expert

James Roszkoshot himself in the chest while sitting upin the Quonset afterambushing and killing four RCMP officers near Mayerthorpe, Alta.,almost six years ago, a firearms expert told a fatality inquiry Wednesday.

Darryl Barr, an RCMP civilian expert in shooting scene reconstruction and bullet path analysis, spent three days examining the scene in the Quonset on Roszko's farm.

He used lasers to trace the paths of the bullets to the source of their origin from where they were found.

Roszko gunned down RCMP constables Anthony Gordon, Leo Johnston, Brock Myrol and Peter Schiemann on March 3, 2005. Roszko had been wounded by an officer moments earlier.

The inquiry at the courthouse in Stony Plain, Alta., is looking into the events leading up to Roszko's ambush of the Mounties on his farmtolearn how similar tragedies can be prevented.

Roszko fired16 shotsduring the ambush,and 11of them hitthe officers,Barr told the inquiry.

It was clear Roszko was moving inside the Quonset during the shooting, firing from at least three locations, but Barr could not say at what range the officers were shot. He also saidthere is no way to determine the sequence of shots.

"You can't get a second-by-second analysis," hetold reporters outside the courthouse.

"What we have is snapshots or moments in time and we know that all of those gunshots at least 16 of them that I found evidence of and 19 overall we know that they happened probably within seconds or under a minute."

Graphic computer model

Agraphic computer model showed the inside of the Quonset, withoutlines of the bodieswhere they were found.Amaze of arrows crisscrossed the screen, indicating thepath of each bullet.

Three officerslay near the middle of the Quonset.Const. Gordon's body was found near the front of the Quonset, not far from Roszko's.

The inquiry spent Wednesday afternoon examining how seriously police treated Roszko as a threatprior to the ambush.

Sgt. Carrie Vander Kracht, an expert on threat assessment, testified about Roszko's criminal past.

Vander Kracht read out a long list of Roszko's criminal activity over 30 years,includingnumerouscomplaints and convictions for sexual assault andweapons charges.

Roszko was even a suspect ina murderin Alberta in 1976, though no details were given.

Grace Johnston, mother of Johnston, expressed exasperation in her cross examination thatthe right people didn't have enough information about how dangerous Roszko was.

"There's breakdown here and it costfour lives," she said.

The inquiry continues through the week and is scheduled to end Feb. 1.

Public hearings held under the Alberta Fatality Inquiries Act are limited to establishing the cause, manner, time, place and circumstances of death, as well as the identity of the deceased, police said.

The judge may make recommendations to prevent similar occurrences but is prohibited, under the act, from making findings of legal responsibility.