During Wednesday's court proceedings in the trial of the Calgary youth charged with the first-degree murder of Calgary Police officer Sgt. Andrew Harnett, two police officers testified.
 
 
Crown prosecutor Mike Ewenson called to the stand Constable Adam Osmond and Constable Josh Desroches. Both police officers had been called to back up Sgt. Harnett on December 31st 2020 to a routine traffic stop.
 
"We heard Sgt. Harnett come over the radio...that he had the vehicle pulled over at the Petro Canada just immediately North of where we were," Const. Osmond said. "Knowing that Sgt. Harnett works alone, we decided we would back him up as we were the closest unit immediately available."
 
Ewenson asked Osmond if the radio call indicated that this particular traffic stop was a high-risk stop, to which Osmond told him, the only issue was that of a license plate and the number of occupants.
 
"To my recollection Sgt. Harnett aired that the vehicle had a mechanic plate on it which indicates that there's no availability of the registered owner of the vehicle, so we're not able to do typical checks," he said. "So we don't know who's in the vehicle. I believe that Sgt. Harnett thought it had multiple occupants, therefore, making it more of an increased risk for him to attend and deal with as a lone officer."
 
According to Const. Osmond, by the time he and Const. Desroches arrive at the scene, Sgt. Harnett was already engaged with the driver of the vehicle. The occupants of the vehicle did not have driver's licenses on them and instead, the driver of the vehicle, the accused, gave Sgt. Harnett his name and date of birth. After the officers conducted searches on their databases, they came to realize the passenger in the vehicle had outstanding warrants. 
 
"The three of us exited the police vehicles. I followed Const. Desroches up the passenger side of the vehicle where the passenger door was was still open," Const. Osmond said. "Const. Desroches engaged with the passenger that he was going to be placed under arrest for his outstanding warrants and was in the process of stepping out of the vehicle. I was back just slightly near the rear passenger door when the vehicle in question sped off at a higher rate of speed towards the exit towards Falcon Ridge Drive."
 
Both officers chased after the vehicle but ultimately decided not to fire their weapons, realizing it would not impede the car.
 
"Very quickly I updated on the radio that 1510 which was Sgt. Harnett designation that night was being dragged by the vehicle on the traffic stop."  
 
The officers proceeded to chase after the vehicle before another witness flagged them down.
 
"I remember seeing a small silver four-door car with an elderly black gentleman standing out the side kind of waving and flagging us down and as I came to a stop, I remember seeing Sgt. Harnett lying, probably 30 or 40 feet behind that laying in the roadway," Const. Osmond told the court.
 
By the time the two constables reached Sgt. Harnett, was already unresponsive.
 
"He was laying on his back, staring up the sky, unresponsive. I don't recall if he blinked. He didn't appear to have any injuries, but he was unresponsive in response to our asking anything about him," he said. " Const. Desroches got down not knowing what had caused him to come free from their vehicle. He began bracing his neck to stabilize [to see[ if there were any spinal injuries while I updated on the radio our location requesting an ambulance is as quick as possible and backup units."
 
Constable Josh Desroches also took the stand.
 
"So when the vehicle took off, Sgt. Andrew Harnett was no longer standing where you expected him to be?" asked Crown prosecutor Mike Ewenson.
 
Const. Desroches didn't see that Sgt. Harnett was attached to the vehicle until two car lengths down. 
"It's hard to determine from my point of view. It's like he was kind of stuck in the driver's window, elevated his feet off the ground," Const. Desroches said. "When we got on to Falconridge Drive, you could not see the vehicle anymore. There's a natural bend that occurs left. I immediately ran to Sgt. Harnett and I just got down with him. There were no overt obvious injuries to attempt to and I wasn't really sure on how he just came off the vehicle."
 
"While you were talking to him, did he say anything back to you or did you see any other signs of alertness or conscious breathing the time?" Ewenson asked.
 
"He was appeared, alert still; responding to my talking to him: Don" Const. Desroches answered. "Then after a couple of minutes there's like a gasping for air and that's when fire was kind of rolling in at the time."
 
It wasn't until later when Const. Desroches examined his own clothes that he realized due to the amount of blood from Sgt. Harnett, that Harnett had suffered a concussion to the head.
 
"[My gloves] yeah, they were saturated."
 
After a brief recess, during the afternoon, an agreed statement of facts was read out to the court. The prosecution did rest their case, while defence lawyer Bob Aloneissi was granted by Justice Anna Loparco a trial adjournment to prepare expert witnesses for his client.
 
"We'll work with your respective offices and figure out something hopefully before September," said Justice Anna Loparco.