Canadian police have identified the heavily armed culprits of a blatant bank robbery last week as twin brothers, whose posts on social media showed an obsession with guns and fears of government “tyranny” and an interest in the infamous bank robberies.
On Saturday, police identified Mathew and Isaac Auchterlonie, 22, as the two men killed after attempting to rob a bank in the municipality of Saanich, British Columbia.
The brothers entered a branch of the Bank of Montreal on Tuesday morning in black clothes and armored vests.
At that time there were about 20 people in the bank. “Their energy was completely calm,” Shelli Fryer, who was there for a meeting with the branch manager, told CTV News. “When they spoke, it was with quiet voices.”
When police arrived a chaotic shooting began as the brothers left the bank. The twins died in the shooting and six officers were injured, including three with serious gunshot wounds.
“At first I thought they were fireworks, so I ran to the window and looked outside. And it was just a hail of bullets going all over the place, and the police had the whole place closed, “Christopher Lee Ford, who lives in the area, told the Capital Daily in Victoria City. He and his family they took refuge in his dining room. “I saw two policemen as they were shot.”
Police ordered companies and residents to evacuate the area after several explosive devices were found, which closed the area for several days.
“This is something that shakes a community,” Saanich police chief Dean Duthie told reporters in the hours following the shooting.
But the actions of the brothers during the wrong robbery have left the victims looking for answers.
“I don’t know what they wanted. What were they waiting for?” said Fryer. “They got all the money. They could have taken the money and left right away. They would have come in and out before the police got there.”
Although they arrived at the bank heavily armed and with a lair of explosives, police say none of the brothers had a criminal record and were not previously known to police.
But Isaac Auchterlonie’s Instagram account, which has since been withdrawn, narrated a growing animosity toward the federal government and a fixation on firearms. Scattered all over the account were images of the young man firing rifles into the woods and praise for the famous robberies at previous banks.
One publication shared excerpts from a documentary about the North Hollywood shooting, a bank robbery in 1997 in which two heavily armed men injured more than a dozen people during a clash with police.
Other publications referred to a conflict between the Irish Republican Army and British soldiers and police, as well as the siege of Waco, when federal officers and soldiers stormed a Davidian Branch religious precinct in Texas in 1993.
Auchterlonie also expressed fierce opposition to vaccination against Covid-19, as well as to the recent arms control legislation proposed by the federal government.
“When they try to vaccinate and also try to take up arms,” the post said, followed by the hashtags #tryandtakeit and #getwhatyoudeserve and #fuckyoutrudeau, referring to the prime minister.
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He also used the hashtags #tyranny, #donttreadonme and “tyrantrepellent #tryandtakeit when posting images of weapons.
Nearly a week after the shooting, police have yet to release a chronology of the events, including who fired first.
“There are still many questions and research efforts that need to be made to fully understand what happened and why,” Corporal Alex Bérubé said at a news conference on Saturday.
“The motive for the armed robbery and the subsequent exchange of gunfire with the police has not yet been determined.”