The leader of the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team had just 60 seconds to plan how to respond to a bank robbery and hostage-taking two years ago today.
“You have to just rely on your training and your experiences as a police officer to help you navigate through that type of incident that is rapidly unfolding,” Staff Sgt. John Musicco of Victoria police told reporters on Thursday.
The 911 calls reported a bank robbery with hostages. A subsequent investigation found that disaffected brothers Matthew and Isaac Auchterlonie, 22, had expected to die that day and were seeking to kill as many police officers as possible.
When Musicco, who was driving the team’s white van, arrived on Shelbourne Street, he first drove past the bank but could see little of the interior.
“I have 60 seconds worth of time to develop a plan,” he recalled.
Officers in the van had been at another incident several kilometres away and had to rapidly change their mindset to face the new challenge, relying on years of intensive training. Musicco has spent 20 years as a police officer and 12 with the Emergency Response Team.
“My mission at that stage is to save those hostages,” Musicco said. The secondary mission was to arrest the suspects.
He was determined to separate the hostages and the suspects. He did not want the suspects, who were moving out of the building, to get back inside where the hostages were held.
Musicco said he saw an opportunity to drive a physical wedge between the hostages and suspects and pulled the van up next to the bank’s entrance.
“One of the suspects ends up turning really quickly and starts shooting at us,” he said.
As the van was taking fire, Musicco’s life flashed before his eyes. He drew his pistol to fire through the van’s windshield.
“Five of my closest friends, who I also am responsible for supervising, have now been shot — three of which have catastrophic life-threatening injuries.”
The gunfight lasted only 26 seconds.
The gunmen died at the scene and six officers were wounded. Patrol cars and ambulances raced the injured officers to hospital.
A lifetime of healing
All 22 hostages inside the Bank of Montreal branch on Shelbourne Street were safe.
During the gunfight, Musicco was shot through his right foot, leaving him with nerve damage and some mobility issues. These injuries pale in comparison with those sustained by other team members, he said.
He was off work for about eight weeks.
At the end of 2023, Musicco left the Emergency Response Team’s tactical unit. At the beginning of this year, he was accepted into its critical incident commander program. Today, he is also in charge of the police department’s covert surveillance, intelligence and forensic units.
One Victoria police officer injured that day is on a gradual-return-to-work program. Three Saanich officers remain off duty.
Musicco sees his presence at the scene that day as positive and feels fortunate to have been present.
“I’m willing to risk my life for the citizens of this community,” he said. “And I know the six members in the van are willing to do the exact same thing.”
The emotional healing after the incident will take a lifetime, he said.
Musicco wants people to know the emotions they are feeling are OK, whether they are happy or sad on a particular day, and they can allow themselves to process those emotions.
Responses to serious incidents differ from person to person, he said.
Grateful for community
Musicco has been attending conferences and presenting lectures to community members and other police officers in the hopes of helping others. He is also aware of the keen interest in the gun battle and wants to tell people what happened.
He will never forget community support in the aftermath. More than $270,000 was raised to support police officers recovering from injuries.
He remembers walking into the station to see “tables and tables and tables of cards lined up and letters of appreciation.”
Saanich Const. Steven Reichert, another Emergency Response Team member, was in the back of the van. He was shot in both his legs and in the left arm. He spent most of the next 10 months in a wheelchair, having additional surgeries and going through lengthy rehabilitation.
A few weeks prior to the shooting, the department had gone through an extensive medical training update, which Reichert credits for providing critical support to injured members at the scene.
Today, he has a titanium rod in his left leg after 10 centimetres of his tibia was “vapourized” when shot. A second blast hit the calf of his right leg and he found himself on his back in the van. He tried to stand up but his legs would not support him.
He considers the outcome a success “because we were able to achieve our ultimate goal, which was securing the hostages and protecting innocent people,” he said in a recently videotaped interview provided to media.
Like Musicco, Riechert learned it was OK to be sad, frustrated and angry.
Saanich Police Chief Dean Duthie said the past two years have been unlike any time in the department’s history. “The injuries and scars that are left are not gone and people have had to learn to continue to process this as they continue to report for duty each and every day.”
It has taught him a lot of personal lessons as a leader.
“Understanding that human emotion is so very powerful and everybody can process and does process trauma in different ways at different speeds and their healing processes are very individualized as well.”
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
