tobias romaniuk
post staff
For more than a week, Grace Johnston sat in a courtroom in Stony Plain listening to the Mayerthorpe fatality inquiry of four RCMP officers, including her son Leo Johnston, who was shot and killed by James Rozko in what was supposed to be a routine search and seizure at a rural Mayerthorpe farm in March of 2005.
Part of the inquiry detailed how her son returned fire as he lay on the ground. From start to finish, she sat through every hour of the proceedings for 12 days. There were days when it was hard to go, and days when it was hard to sit and listen to the circumstances leading up to her son’s murder. But she didn’t think of not going. It was something she had to do.
Was it tough? Yes, she says after a long pause. “A lot of it was very, very difficult to hear.”
It was especially tough when other police officers testified. Grown men, with a reputation for being strong, breaking down in tears as they relived that night.
“You don’t often see grown men cry,” she said.
But amongst the pain came some relief, as she was told her son, shot multiple times, likely didn’t suffer long before dying.
“For me that was huge,” she said.
And although it was tough, she was there to seek answers, and to find the reasons behind the decisions that led to the deaths of her son and constables Schiemann, Gordon and Myrol. And she had questions. Lots of questions.
Each family member of the Fallen Four was given the chance to ask questions at the inquiry, and after listening, asking, and listening some more, she thought of what she had heard, and what could be learned from it. Those thoughts became recommendations she submitted to the inquiry.
Better body armour, better training, and improved radio communication devices were among her recommendations. But it’s not the RCMP that really needs help, she said. It’s the legal system, which keeps letting criminals like Rozko walk despite multiple run-ins with the law. Or which recommends parole for Rozko’s accomplice Dennis Cheeseman after serving only two years of his 12-year sentence. Johnston will be going to that parole hearing in May.
Through it all, she deals with it the best she can.
“You take it as it is, and it becomes another page in the scenario,” she said.
That scenario began with her son’s murder, continued through a bitter struggle to keep his body in Lac La Biche, where he was buried, before courts ruled in favour of the 32-year-old officer’s widow that he be moved to the RCMP cemetery at the RCMP depot in Regina. Then there were the trials of Cheeseman and co-accomplice Shawn Henessey, the two men who gave Rozko a ride to his yard, where he ambushed the RCMP officers. Then there was the recent fatality inquiry, and in May, sandwiched between her birthday and her wedding anniversary, the parole hearing for Cheeseman.
Through it all she has received calls, letters, and comments from people telling her she is so strong, so brave, and that they are so proud of her.
But Grace doesn’t see it that way. She was just doing what she felt she had to do. She’s not especially brave, nor strong, she said.
“No, I’m just a mom.”
