Police, residents mourn death of Mountie

Officer died tragically while on duty in rural Saskatchewan

WOLSELEY, SASK. — An RCMP officer struck and killed during a traffic stop is being remembered as a compassionate member of a rural Saskatchewan detachment.

Const. Shelby Patton, 26, died Saturday after he stopped a suspected stolen truck in the town of Wolseley, Sask., east of Regina.

RCMP said Patton, who had been working alone, was hit by the truck while outside his police vehicle. The truck took off and Patton died at the scene.

A man and a woman were later arrested in a field outside the nearby town of Francis, Sask, but no charges have yet been laid.

A growing memorial of flowers, notes and stuffed animals began taking shape on Sunday outside the Indian Head RCMP detachment, where Patton was stationed. A small cross was also placed on the lawn.

One poster, in what appeared to be a child’s writing, had a message of comfort for the officer’s family

“He is a hero and always will be,” it said. “Thank you for your service. P.S. We love you.”

Gillian Solomon, who works at the Ace Hardware store across the street, said Patton was a regular customer.

“He was really nice,” she said. “An awful lot of the time, you run into RCMP officers in their private lives and they’re cautious, (but) he was a really pleasant, nice guy.”

In his six years of service in Indian Head, Solomon said Patton touched many lives in town. She described him as compassionate and caring, and said he will be missed.

“A lot of people are really devastated by what happened to him, whether they knew him or not,” she said.

“And of course, there’s the fact that he was just too freaking young.”

RCMP said Patton, originally from Yorkton, Sask., had been a Mountie for six years and four months, almost all of which he spent at Indian Head. He was briefly assigned to Parliament Hill in 2015.

Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore of the Saskatchewan RCMP has said Patton was known as a hard-working, dedicated police officer and his colleagues have been traumatized by his death.