Mountie shooter says he was trying to scare constable

The Saskatchewan man accused of shooting and injuring an off-duty RCMP officer in Carrot River is trying to argue he only meant to scare the mountie.

The man's trial began Wednesday. The shooting took place around 8 p.m. CST on Jan. 16, 2006 when the accused, now 22, was sixteen years old.

He can not be identified because of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The trial began with the Crown prosecutor and defence lawyer providing the court with an agreed statement of facts.

One area of agreement is an admission that the young man fired a shot at Const. Greg Toogood, who had gone to the back porch of his home to check on his barking dog.

The trial is expected to focus on intent, as the defence has said the boy did not want his shot to hit the officer.

Instead, the boy's goal was to scare the officer so that he would leave the community. Court learned the boy had been involved in a break-in with some other youths.

He did not want his father to learn about that from Toogood.

So the boy took his father's rifle and wrapped his boots in plastic bags and went to the officer's home and the shooting took place.

The court also heard testimony from a friend of the accused who said he remembered theboy saying, at the time, that he should shoot the officer.

Andrew Derksen also testified that he thought the accused said that as a joke.

The officer was shot in the arm. About a year after the shooting, RCMP said the officer was still healing from the injuries but was able to get back to policing duties.

Carrot River is about 250 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.