Stephanie McDonald
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, November 8, 2007

KIMMIRUT/LAKE HARBOUR - Kimmirut resident Pingoatuk Kolola, 37, charged with first-degree murder of an RCMP officer on Nov. 7, is scheduled to appear in court in Iqaluit on Friday.

Twenty-year-old Const. Douglas Scott was responding to a complaint of a drunk driver in the southern Baffin Island hamlet of 400 people on Nov. 5, but before he was able to get out of his police vehicle, he was shot in the head by a high-powered rifle.

The suspect's family has been "devastated" by the tragic incident, RCMP Supt. Tim Cogan said.

Const. Douglas Scott: in his serge, taken on April 17, 2007. He was shot and killed in Kimmirut on Monday night.

"They are deeply distraught by what has occurred. They expressed their sorrow to (Scott's) family," Cogan said during a press conference on Wednesday following a meeting with relatives of the suspect.

"The family of the accused are trying to understand what happened."

A team of psychologists and the RCMP chaplain have been dispatched to the community.

"We are all saddened and to some extent we¹re angry, because he was friendly to everyone," said Akeego Ikkidluak, Kimmirut¹s senior administrative officer.

She said that all of the town¹s children would surround and greet Scott when he walked his dog. He had only been posted to Kimmirut a month before he was fatally shot.

At approximately 11:56 p.m. on Nov. 5, Scott was radioed about a suspected impaired driver. He began patrolling the community and was directed by two residents to where the suspect¹s vehicle had become stuck.

At 11:20 p.m. the dispatcher from ŒV¹ Division in Iqaluit attempted to contact Scott but received no response.

Ten minutes later, two community members found his body.

"He was found in his vehicle and he was deceased at the time," Cogan said.

The two people who found Scott went to the residence of the second RCMP officer in Kimmirut for help. Upon arrival at the scene, the RCMP officer radioed the dispatcher to say that the rookie constable had been fatally shot.

Just before midnight the suspect was identified and was seen entering his residence.

The Emergency Response Team out of Iqaluit arrived shortly afterwards, and after roughly three hours of negotiations, Kolola surrendered peacefully at 4:10 a.m.

He was flown in the RCMP aircraft to Iqaluit and charged with first-degree murder two days later. Approximately 20 additional personnel from the RCMP ­ including forensics experts ­ are on the ground in Iqaluit and Kimmirut, working on the investigation.

Scott was a recent graduate of the RCMP academy in Regina, Saskatchewan, and had been posted to Iqaluit for recruit field training.

During his five months of training in Nunavut's capital, he was assigned a trainer who offered constant supervision. Scott was assessed as capable of working in a less structured environment and sent to the two-person Kimmirut detachment.

Nunavut acts as a training ground for recent graduates of the RCMP program. When asked if this policy would be reviewed in light of the recent shooting death, Cogan said that the police force is always looking at how best to deploy its members. It will review the policy, but such reviews are a normal course of action, he said.

It is the second time in a month that an RCMP officer has been shot and killed in the North. Const. Christopher Worden, 30, was gunned down while on duty in Hay River, NWT on Oct. 6.

The last RCMP officer killed in Nunavut was Const. Jurgen Seewald, 47, who died from a gunshot wound while responding to a domestic dispute in Cape Dorset in 2001.

A regimental funeral has been planned for Scott on Nov. 13 in his hometown of Brockville, Ontario.