The widow of Donnie Robichaud, one of the four killed by a man firing a rifle from an apartment window in Fredericton last week, says she told the Canadian Prime Minister he was a piece of shit during a condolence call.
The call to Melissa Robichaud came on Wednesday, reports the Canadian Press. One of the things that Robichaud said she was upset with Trudeau about was that he visited the province on Sunday but only paid condolences to the slain police officers. So when the call from him came several days later and he explained that he couldn’t express his condolences to her family because he was meeting with the family of the police officers, she let him know how she felt about him.
Videos by VICE
“So I said so what,” she told the Canadian Press. “They wear a vest, they carry a gun, that makes them more important than one of us? I called him a piece of shit.”
“Honestly I just lost my husband and my kids have just lost their father. My son put it on Facebook how hurt he was that he was in town and he couldn’t even find a phone number to call and give his condolences or anything like that.”
Robichaud was killed a week ago, after a man fired a long gun from a apartment window killed the 42-year-old and three others. The others killed were police officers Constable Sara Burns, 43, and Constable Lawrence Costello, 45 and Robichaud’s girlfriend Bobbie Lee Wright, 32. Police have arrested and charged Matthew Vincent Raymond, 48, with four counts of first-degree murder.
So far not much about Raymond is known. Acquaintances of the man have said that he was an avid cyclist and loved to play video games. It is also alleged that he had strong feeling regarding immigrants in the country. The manager at a coffee house Raymond would frequent said he once saw the man with a “No Sharia” sign protesting Muslims at Fredericton city hall and that he had to tell Raymond to not return to the coffee shop after spouting off Islamophobic rhetoric about Syrian refugees to other customers. A former coworker of Raymond described him as a man with a short fuse who “lived like a child.”
One of the reasons that we know so little about Raymond is that he has pretty much no social media footprint. However, the CBC recently found the man’s Twitter account. According to the outlet Raymond tweeted under the name ColtC8 for about four years. The account they’ve linked to Raymond tweeted sympathetically towards the RCMP officers killed in New Brunswick by Justin Bourque in 2014. While the shooting was ongoing the account chastised users for talking about police positions.
“People wake up & shut up,” Raymond wrote, according to CBC. “Your comments could get someone killed.”
Sign up for the VICE Canada Newsletter to get the best of VICE Canada delivered to your inbox.
Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.
