The twin brothers who died in a hail of gunfire last summer outside a Canadian bank had been planning their attack for years, aiming to kill as many officers as possible, police said Friday.
An investigation by the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crimes Unit says 22-year-old Isaac Auchterlonie and his twin, Mathew, showed up at the Victoria, British Columbia-area bank on June 28, 2022, with bulletproof vests and semi-automatic rifles. .
The couple held strong anti-government and anti-police views and did not expect to live past the confrontation, police said.
“It was determined that the main objective of the suspects was to shoot and kill police officers in what they saw as a stance against government regulations, especially in relation to the possession of firearms,” said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Alex Bérubé said during a press conference at the Saanich Police Department.
CANADIAN POLICE ARRESTED SECOND SUSPECT IN A DEADLY STABING STAGE; HE HAD BEEN PAROLED FOR PREVIOUS VIOLENT OFFENSES
As the twins were leaving the bank, members of the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team, who were in the area on an unrelated matter, entered the parking lot to assist other officers, police said.
Six officers were wounded in the ensuing firefight. An earlier report said police fired up to 100 rounds at the suspects, killing both of them.
Bérubé said the couple had been planning some kind of “extreme act of violence” since 2019 and originally wanted the shooting to happen in mid-2023.
The Canadian twin brothers who robbed a bank mainly focused on attacking the cops. The suspects planned this incident for years and left six officers injured before they were fatally shot.
They decided to move forward in their timeline after finding out that they had to move out of the house they shared with their mother.
“The suspects concluded that they could not move their arsenal of weapons to a new location without attracting attention and therefore chose the location of the bank at random,” Bérubé said.
In the trunk of his vehicle, police discovered more than 30 improvised explosive devices, four additional firearms, and more than 3,500 rounds of ammunition.
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The brothers held unrestricted and restricted firearms licenses, Bérubé said.
Police say the 22 employees and customers held by the men during the 16 minutes they were in the bank were not attacked and were only held for a police response.
