Hero officer was devoted dad - and my friend

On one of those lost to a mentally disturbed man’s bullets, about the job of journalism and about how the news can hit home for those tasked with reporting it to the public

Note: On the fifth anniversary of the Aug. 10, 2018, shootings that snuffed out four lives and forever changed Fredericton, I present the column I wrote that day, when I was working for the daily newspaper.

I was the first reporter on the ground for a news story that’s made international headlines. An active shooter, a security perimeter, rumours of police officers down.

What I didn’t know at first was that one of those fallen officers was a family friend.

Four people are dead, two of them Fredericton Police Force officers. Const. Robb Costello and Const. Sara Mae Burns died protecting others in a scenario previously thought to be unimaginable for Fredericton.

Const. Robb Costello. (Photo: Fredericton Police Force)

Robb was a friend. Sure, I’m friendly with a lot of city police officers, given my job as the courts/crime reporter for the Daily Gleaner. But I knew Robb better, had a closer bond with him.

Robb - he always insisted on two Bs in his name - grew up in Sussex, just as my wife did. They were friends throughout junior high and high school, and when we started dating 15 years ago, it wasn’t long before I discovered her schoolmate was on the police force here in Fredericton. I encountered him often in court, and his friendship with my spouse-to-be made for a slightly stronger connection between reporter and constable.

I constantly teased Robb that I was privy to secrets that no one else in Fredericton knew about. I’d seen the photos of the tall afro and the MC Hammer parachute pants. I’d read the lyrics of the rap he’d written in high school. He was a guest at my wedding in Sussex, and thanks to the coincidence of mutual friends, we ran in the same social circles in Fredericton.

Robb was always all smiles when I’d run into him or when he’d get together with my wife and other friends from back home for lunch or a mini-reunion. But there was also a mischievous glint in his eye when he’d smile. That hint of mischief just made you like him even more.

He was a devoted dad to two beautiful young women - not girls anymore, but they were his little girls all the same. He took on the role again to his new partner Jackie’s two kids when they got together several years ago.

Robb served in various divisions of the Fredericton Police Force over the years, among them patrol and major crimes. He was also seconded for a couple of years to the RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation unit. Though still a member of the Fredericton force, he worked with the Mounties hunting down people who accessed and distributed child pornography and predators who sought out young victims online.

Robb proved himself a hero in the end, rushing into danger to help people he didn’t even know. But he already was a hero several times over - to his kids, to his common-law spouse Jackie, to his mom Dolores, to his friends, to the people of Fredericton and all of New Brunswick.

A Fredericton Police Force officer maintains watch at the perimeter of the scene of horrific shootings Aug. 10, 2018, on Brookside Drive while casting an eye toward the spot where two comrades in arms lost their lives. (Photo: Don MacPherson/File)

This horrific event has put Fredericton in the minds and hearts of Canada and even other parts of the world. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged our pain, and CNN has turned its attention to our small provincial capital.

It’s the sort of situation every reporter thinks about. I was getting messages from reporters and news producers from all over the country and even overseas about the story.

But as soon as I discovered Robb was one of the fallen officers - which I learned hours before they were identified publicly - I knew it wasn’t my story anymore. My reaction was guttural and immediate. I worried for my wife, how she’d react when I told her. I pictured the wave of sorrow that would spread out among our friends as a physical force, knocking them over, one by one.

I was too close to it; ethically, I couldn’t cover the news story anymore.

But it doesn’t matter.

Robb is gone, and others’ loved ones are dead and injured. I just wish a good friend, a good partner and a good father was still here, and that I’d had another routine day at work.

Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.