Whitehorse Daily Star

Stained RCMP patrol jacket entered as trial evidence

Among the exhibits introduced to a Yukon Supreme Court jury Monday was a stained yellow RCMP patrol jacket with metal fragments stuck to it.

By Chuck Tobin on September 17, 2013

Among the exhibits introduced to a Yukon Supreme Court jury Monday was a stained yellow RCMP patrol jacket with metal fragments stuck to it.

It belonged to Haines Junction Cpl. Kim MacKellar, the jury heard.

The jury saw an RCMP duty shirt cut down the middle with the initial ‘K” and MacKellar on it.

There was a radar control box which is usually mounted on the dashboard of a police vehicle, and another small electronic piece that likely came off the control box, the 14 jurors heard.

Remaining inside the evidence bag were little pieces of electronics and tin metal fragments, they were told.

Several .375 H & H rifle bullets were marked as exhibits, one of them taken from Christopher Cornell.

The 31-year-old Whitehorse man is on trial for attempting to murder MacKellar by shooting at him with a rifle during a high-speed chase in 2011.

The 14 jururs also heard how a rifle was found by the police dog in the vicinity of where Cornell and 22-year-old Jessica Johnson were arrested near the Pine Lake Campground outside Haines Junction on the morning of Sept. 26, 2011.

They heard defence lawyer David Tarnow ask how it was his client would be permitted to ride from the scene of the arrest at Pine Lake to the Haines Junction detachment with a bullet in the pocket of his jeans.

Tarnow has introduced testimony through the cross-examination of other police officers indicating it's standard practice to search suspects to ensure they have no weapons before they're placed in the police vehicle.

"There is no way that man got into your police car with a bullet sitting in his right-hand pocket,” Tarnow suggested to RCMP Cpl. Ty Daniels.

Daniels said he did not search Cornell because he had assumed the officers who had arrested him and had him lying handcuffed and face-down on the ground had already searched him when he and another officer put the accused in their police vehicle.

It's not unheard of to miss something in a search, the RCMP officer of seven years told Tarnow.

"He got in the police car with a bullet; is that your evidence?” Tarnow asked.

"Yes, it is, Sir,” Daniels replied.

The officer testified he came across the .375 H & H bullet as he was seizing Cornell's clothing after the suspect had been placed in a jail cell at the Haines Junction detachment.

Cornell and Johnson were charged with attemping to murder MacKellar and Shane Oakley by shooting at them during a high-speed chase on Sept. 26, 2011.

They were also charged with using violence against Frank Parent while stealing the safe from Madley's General Store that morning.

Only Cornell is on trial at this time.

The jury has so far heard how Oakley was with MacKellar that morning after Oakley had been awakened at 6:12 a.m. by the phone and a neighbour leaving a message that two people were breaking into the house.

While driving around the area in MacKellar's RCMP truck, they were alerted by the police radio of a break-in ocurring at Madley's, the jury has heard.

When Oakley and MacKellar arrived, they pulled up to a black SUV parked outside the store.

As MacKellar was getting out, the SUV sped off and headed down the Alaska Highway toward Destruction Bay. MacKellar and Oakley gave chase.

Not long into the pursuit, the SUV started driving in the opposite lane.

Things started flying out the rear passenger door – power tools, a generator and a hind quarter of a deer among them.

Oakley testified at one point he saw the rear window of the SUV blow out and a man fall backward inside the rear area.

Not long afterward, as they passed another SUV parked on the side of the road, Oakley told the jury he heard a loud noise. Then there was an explosion of glass inside the police truck.

When he looked to MacKellar, blood had started pouring down the corporal's face. MacKellar pulled over, his vision impaired. Oakley assisted him to the passenger seat, and drove the officer back to the Haines Junction Health Centre.

The jury has seen and heard evidence of what has been described as a bullet hole through the front windshield of MacKellar's RCMP crew cab.

Cpl. Richard Air testified he was dispatched to Haines Junction that morning as a negotiator for the emergency response team, but when he arrived, there was no more need for a negotiator.

He said he first met Oakley at about 1:20 p.m., when Oakley walked into the detachment.

"So I spoke to him,” Air testified Monday. "I sensed he was very stressed, to me, almost in a state of shock.”

Air said he kept the conversation short and simple.

The jury has also heard how two employees of the Talbot Arms Motel who were driving to Whitehorse from Destruction Bay that morning picked up a couple about half-way to Haines Junction after having noticed a black SUV off the road.

Colin Asselstine, a Talbot Arms employee, testified last week the man was carrying a rifle, and had explained they'd been out hunting when they'd run into vehicle trouble.

They asked for a lift to the Pine Lake Campground, where the man's brother was staying. Asselstine identified the man as Cornell.

The jury heard evidence Monday of how RCMP Cpl. Rod Hamilton and his police dog made an initial search of the Pine Lake Campground and the surrounding area after the couple had been arrested nearby. The search turned up three candy wrappers.

Jury members heard of a second search shortly afterward in the same general area when the police dog detected what turned out to be a rifle hidden under moss.

The trial continued this morning before Justice Leigh Gower.

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