Court documents that came to light this week regarding the murder of an Alberta peace officer suggest Rod Lazenby may not have just been caught in a quickly-devolving situation but may have been the victim of an ambush.
Lazenby, a former undercover RCMP officer, was killed on August 10, 2012 while investigating a dog complaint in the rural stretches of the Municipal District of Foothills, south of Calgary.
The man who lived on the property, 46-year-old Trevor Kloschinsky, has been charged with first-degree murder.
Court documents say the accused was hiding out in his Quonset for three days because he feared someone was stealing his dogs.
He owned 34 and kept them inside a Quonset. He believed Lazenby and the local RCMP were involved in the thefts.
Kloschinsky told police in an interview after his arrest that he "had to take things into his own hands," according to information submitted to obtain a search warrant.
If true, Lazenby joins a large number of Alberta police and peace officers who have been gunned down as a result of planned and deliberate actions by criminals.
Alberta is, after all, the setting of the biggest single-day loss of life for the RCMP in the last 100 years.
Click through the gallery below for a list of Alberta police officers gunned down in the line of duty.
Story continues after slideshow
Alberta Police Officers Gunned Down
Constables Peter Schiemann, Anthony Gordon, Lionide Johnston, and Brock Myrol were all shot killed on March 3, 2005 while executing a property seizure on a farm outside the Alberta town, when they were ambushed by James Roszko. A Quonset hut was also the site of that ambush.
Before police were able to capture him, Roszko -- who was running a hydroponic marijuana grow-op, illegally possessed firearms and had a history of violence -- took his own life.
It took police tactical units and a Canadian Army armoured fighting vehicle to bring the situation to a close.
But the four Mounties weren't the first to fall in all-out shootouts, shootouts that resembled more the lore of the American West, than Alberta's much more peaceful past.
It was right in the middle of Calgary when, in 1974, a glue-crazed addict dug in and turned an old garage grease pit into his personal urban trench and, while armed with an automatic rifle, took on a large and organized group of Calgary Police Service members.
Police came face to face with the eventual killer after the man grew violent when a store clerk refused to sell him model airplane glue. By the time police arrived at his residence, he was already armed, in position and preparing for the worst.
As it did with Roszko, it eventually took a Canadian Army armoured personnel carrier to end the standoff. When the smoke lifted, the killer was dead but so was CPS Det. Boyd Davidson. Six other members were seriously wounded.
Then there is the shootout that's right out of the pages of a western novel but that unfortunately resulted in very real deaths.
After the Mayorthorpe tragedy, the Bellevue Cafe Shootout is the deadliest day for law enforcement in Alberta, claiming the lives of two Alberta Provincial Police constables and one member of the RCMP.
On August 2, 1920 local miners George Arkoff, Ausby Auloff and Tom Bassoff robbed the Canadian Pacific Railway’s train No. 63 at gunpoint, hoping to find wealthy rum-runner Emilio “Emperor Pic” Picariello aboard. He wasn’t. Eluding the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Alberta Provincial Police and the CPR Police, Auloff escaped into the United States while Bassoff and Arkoff remained in the Pass area. On August 7 the two were spotted in the Bellevue Café. Three constables entered the café through the front and back doors, and in the ensuing shootout Arkoff, RCMP Constable Ernest Usher and APP Constable F.W.E. Bailey were killed while Bassoff, though wounded, escaped into the rubble of the Frank Slide . During the pursuit, Special Constable Nicolas Kyslik was accidentally shot and killed by another officer. Bassoff was eventually apprehended without incident on August 11th at Pincher Station, 35 kilometres to the east.