IQALUIT, Nunavut - The trial of a Nunavut man charged with first-degree murder of an RCMP officer has heard how people in the remote Arctic hamlet handled the situation without help from police.
The jury heard Wednesday that while local residents warned the town's only other officer to stay behind locked doors, citizens checked to make sure that Const. Doug Scott wasn't simply wounded.
Others blocked off the road leading up to where the suspected shooter, Ping Kolola, had barricaded himself.
One man entered the alleged gunman's house to convince Kolola to release his eight-month-old son. And still others kept him on the phone, trying to talk him out of killing himself.
Eventually, about five hours after Scott was killed, an RCMP SWAT team arrived and Kolola surrendered.
In earlier testimony, court heard that Kolola was driving drunkenly around town with his baby son Adam in his lap after fighting with his common-law wife.
Kolola's co-worker Sam Pikuyak had been following him in hopes of defusing the situation. It was Pikuyak who found Scott's body between 11 p.m. and midnight, and he brought the news to fellow municipal employee Lloyd McDougall.
"He said to me, 'We've got a dead cop uptown,' " McDougall testified Wednesday.
McDougall said he tracked down the town's other RCMP officer, who was visiting a friend. McDougall said he advised the officer -- who had just arrived from Prince Edward Island on a temporary relief posting -- to stay inside and lock the doors.
McDougall said he then crept up to Scott's vehicle and peered inside to ensure the 20-year-old officer wasn't just wounded.
"My first idea was to rescue (Scott)," McDougall said.
When he realized it was too late for that, he walked over to kids in a nearby park and told them to go home and stay inside. He then set up a roadblock on the street leading up the hill where both Scott's body and Kolola's home were located.
Meanwhile, resident Thomasie Keenaik -- who had also been following the alleged gunman -- contacted Kolola's longtime friend and hunting partner Kolola Pitsiulak in hopes he could calm the situation.
When Pitsiulak telephoned his old friend, Kolola asked him to come by the house where he had barricaded himself.
"He asked me if I could get his son out," Pitsiulak testified. "I said I was scared. I said I would do it if I wasn't harmed, or anybody else."
Pitsiulak went to Kolola's house, where he retrieved the baby and took him a few doors down to his mother. He then returned to Kolola.
Kolola told Pitsiulak that he felt his normal life was over.
"'I'll be known as a cop-killer,' " Pitsiulak said his friend told him.
"He said (that) he pulled the trigger," said Pitsiulak.
Shortly before midnight, Kolola called another ex-wife in Iqaluit. Annie Manning testified that Kolola told him that his current wife was threatening to have him thrown out of their home -- a serious problem where waits for social housing can last years.
Over the course of a half-dozen calls, Manning said Kolola told her his life was over.
"He was thinking of suicide," she testified. "I had to keep him on line. I had to do everything to distract him."
Eventually, an RCMP SWAT team arrived in Kimmirut. Kolola surrendered peacefully and left the house, followed by Pitsiulak.
Kolola tried unsuccessfully to plead guilty to manslaughter on the opening day of his trial. It is scheduled to continue until March 8.
