Accused had options other than shooting OPP officers in Bourget: Crown

The Crown cross-examined Alain Bellefeuille at his murder trial Monday, saying he had options other than shooting officers. CTV’s Katelyn Wilson reports.

Alain Bellefeuille had a slew of other options the night he shot at the OPP officers sent to his home in Bourget in the middle of the night to check on his wellbeing, the Crown told the jury at his murder trial on Monday.

“The only thing you’re thinking about, Mr. Bellefeuille, is to arm yourself in silence and in the dark and wait for them,” François Dulude said during cross-examination.

“It’s one of my options,” Bellefeuille replied.

It’s not disputed nor contested that Bellefeuille killed Sgt. Eric Muller, critically injured Const. Marc Lauzon and wounded Const. François Gamache-Asselin in the early morning hours of May 11, 2023.

Bellefeuille maintains he thought he was firing at intruders and didn’t know they were police officers. He’s pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.

“You had 14 seconds to simply say stop I have a gun,” Dulude suggested.

“It was too late in my head. I thought my life was really in danger at that point and I was going to die,” Bellefeuille said.

Rifle turned into ‘war machine’: Crown

Bellefeuille also rejected Dulude’s suggestion that he’d turned his semi-automatic rifle into a “war machine.”

“You would not consider this gun that you modified, piece by piece, a war machine?”

“No,” Bellefeuille replied.

The gun was legal, but it was equipped with an illegal magazine Bellfeuille modified so that it could hold more than 20 bullets instead of the five it was permitted to have.

Dulude put to Bellefeuille that firing a warning shot wasn’t an option because he knew they were police officers and that would have garnered a response.

“No,” Bellefeuille maintained.

The Crown has said the officers were ambushed.

The officers responded to the home on Laval Street after a neighbour called 911, reporting she heard a gunshot and was worried Bellefeuille had shot himself.

On Monday the Crown suggested that a shell casing seized from one of Bellefeuille’s pockets was the “shell from the gunshot that (your neighbour) would’ve heard.”

Bellefeuille said it wasn’t but didn’t say how it got there.

Bellefeuille previously testified he felt he was “in a nightmare” in those early hours.

‘You are not trembling’

In going over footage from Mueller’s body-warn camera, Dulude commented on Bellefeuille’s demeanour.

“You’re calm, Mr. Bellefeuille.”

“At this point I’m still in a panic, in shock,” Bellefeuille replied.

“You are, Mr. Bellefeuille, in control. You are not trembling,” Dulude said.

“That I couldn’t tell you.”

Bellefeuille testified when he leaned over a dying Mueller saying “you f—ed with the wrong motherf—er. Should’ve never broke into my house. Sorry about that,” that he was talking to himself, not Mueller.

Bellefeuille also said he tried to disarm Mueller but stopped when he realized the gun was still in its holster.

“What I’m suggesting to you Mr. Bellefeuille is that the reason why you’re trying to take away his gun is because you want to put it either in his hand or next to him,” Dulude put to Bellefeuille.

“No,” he answered.

“You want to try and make the paramedics believe and the police officers that you defended yourself,” he argued.

“It was in that moment what I thought, I was trying to defend myself,” Bellefeuille replied.

Last week Bellefeuille testified he heard banging at the back of his house and saw flashlights shining in but said he never heard the officers announce themselves as police when they entered the house.

• RELATED: Man accused of murdering OPP officer testifies in his own defence

Bellefeuille said he’d had hearing issues before but had never gone to the doctor about it.

“You didn’t consult a doctor because you’re making this up,” Dulude said.

Bellefeuille said it was only after he was standing over Mueller, wearing a vest emblazoned with the word “police” that he realized he was a police officer.

“Rather than helping Sgt. Mueller you’re ripping his camera off,” Dulude said. Bellefeuille had previously said he didn’t want to be recorded but when asked why, he said he didn’t know.

Bellefeuille said he fired four “cover shots” outside to give him time to think and that he thought there was still a threat.

“You’ve never been so scared in your life at this point and what you do, Mr. Bellefeuille, in that instance when you realize you’ve shot a cop who is gravely injured is that you then go and shoot at a cop car,” Dulude pressed.

Bellefeuille said he was blinded by a light on one of the police cruisers and could not see the cruisers he struck.

Cross-examination is expected to continue Tuesday.