DAWSON CITY – In October 2011 Sgt. David Morin, now in charge of the Dawson detachment of the RCMP, was a corporal, recently assigned there after postings in Pelly Crossing, Haines Junction and Ross River.

At the time of the events of Oct. 19 and 20, he had had one previous dealing with Mark McDiarmid, having transported him as far as Stewart Crossing on an occasion when McDiarmid was sent to Whitehorse.

On the dates in question, Morin was on restricted administrative duty, recovering from a recent surgery, doing mostly desk work that required him to “lift no more than 10 pounds,” he told Crown counsel Jennifer Grandy as his testimony began last Thursday.

McDiarmid, now 36, is on trial in Yukon Supreme Court charged with damaging a police car, three counts of assaulting a police officer, one count of possessing a dangerous weapon, two counts of assaulting an officer with a weapon and two counts of attempted murder of a police officer. He is acting in his own defence.

On Oct. 19, Morin was informed by Sgt. Dave Wallace that McDiarmid had damaged his RCMP vehicle, designated 1 Alpha 3, with a sledge hammer, smashing a headlight and the windshield, as well as denting a fender. On that day, Wallace had found McDiarmid to talk with him about an existing arrest warrant and these offences made that more urgent.

On the next day, six members of the force set out in three vehicles to find McDiarmid and either resolve the matter or bring him in.

Morin, in plain clothes, travelled with Auxiliary Const. Jayce Murtagh, also in plain clothes, driving in his truck. The other members were in official SUVs 10 Alpha 1 and 10 Alpha 2.

They knew of three places where the suspect might be; one at Henderson Corner, one on the Hunker Road and a third out on the North Fork Road, branching off from the Dempster Highway.

After checking the first location, Morin joined Wallace in 10 Alpha 2 while Const. Jordan McIntyre rode in the truck. They switched back again near the bridge at the beginning of the Dempster Highway before proceeding to the North Fork Road.

The plan was that Morin and Murtagh would essentially reconnoiter the area up the road, posing as hunters.

Wallace and McIntyre took up a position on the Ditch Road, near to the junction, and constables Jeff Nielsen and David Marentette, driving 10 Alpha 1, found a spot to wait in between the others. As it turned out, this central position became the communications link among the three pairs as the local radio repeaters were unable to allow them to broadcast intelligibly for any distance on the police band, though they were able to receive. They were able to relay messages through 10 Alpha 1 on the truckers’ band.

Morin described how they located where they thought McDiarmid was, driving back and forth past the bush road several times and finally parking at a distance where they could see without being seen.

They were passed by a couple of vehicles going in both directions, but did not talk to anyone. After some hours, they heard a vehicle, which they believed was McDiarmid’s red flat bed pickup, emerge from that road, though they didn’t actually see him.

Not too long after that they heard Marentette on the radio saying that the truck had passed 10 Alpha 1, had seen them and was speeding up. They began to follow at a careful night driving speed on that road, and so they were not at the junction when the pursuit ended.

They heard that McDiarmid had driven over a spike belt laid across the road by McIntyre and that he had stopped shortly after rounding the corner on to the Dempster Highway.

They heard Marentette say “he’s bailing,” and then they heard someone say, “shots fired, shots fired.”

By the time they reached the corner, pulling over before going onto the Dempster, McDiarmid was being given first aid by a couple of members and McIntyre had been dispatched in 10 Alpha 1 to reach a point where he would be able to radio to an ambulance.

The pair had both a digital camera and a video camera in the truck, and Morin walked the scene taking pictures, while Murtagh shot a short video. Morin said they were concerned that evidence might be obscured or damaged if it should snow or in some other way.

It was while Morin was taking pictures that he first noticed the rim and lid of the mason jar on the ground and later bits of glass.

Wallace had left him in charge of the scene when they decided it would be best to take McDiarmid in 10 Alpha 2 to meet the ambulance. He took charge of Nielsen’s and Marentette’s duty belts and put them in separate vehicles to work on their notes of the event.

He then went to examine McDiarmid’s truck, in which he found, among other things, a milk crate with a garbage bag inside it and, inside that, a number of mason jars filled with an oily liquid.

Picking one out by the rim, he noted that there was a length of thin black cloth outside the jar, leading into it, that the cloth was damp and smelled of oil or gasoline.

Asked by Grandy what he thought they were, he replied, “They looked like Molotov cocktails.”

McDiarmid rose to object at that point, saying these were a gravel thawing device and that he had prepared a video of how they were used that would clear that matter right up.

Justice Elizabeth Hughes reminded him at some volume that he would get to show that when it came time to present his case. The ensuing argument caused her to send out the jury for a break.

When the court resumed, Morin reported how he had taken another look at 10 Alpha 1 after finding the jars, and discovered bits of glass and an oily substance on the windshield.

Some days later, on Oct. 25, they located the “wick” from that bottle, surmising that it had stuck to the SUV when the bottle broke and blown off about 300 metres from the scene when McIntyre had gone to make the radio call. He produced the thin strip of black cloth for the jury.

One vehicle coming south on the highway had now been held up for several hours and Morin let the elderly couple move on.

Later a YTG highways branch truck approached going north and it, too, was permitted passage. In both cases, they drove by on the side well away from any evidence.

McDiarmid began his cross-examination Friday morning – a half day for the court – and continued today.