Nunavut man admitted killing Mountie: witnesses

Two Crown witnesses at the trial of Pingoatuk (Ping) Kolola, accused of killing an RCMP officer in Nunavut in 2007, have told a jury that Kolola admitted to the crime shortly after it happened.

Kolola, 39, is on trial for first-degree murder in the Nov. 5, 2007, shooting death of Const. Douglas Scott in Kimmirut, a remote community on Baffin Island.

Jurors at the trial, which began Monday in Iqaluit, have heard Scott, 20, was investigating a complaint about a drunk driver that night and was later found shot in his RCMP truck parked at a construction site.

Family members and friends have testified Kolola drove the local housing association's half-tonne truck around Kimmirut in a drunken rage that night, following an argument with his common-law wife. Kolola took his wife's eight-month-old son with him, court was told.

Earlier on Wednesday, longtime Kimmirut resident Matthew Tikivik testified he saw Kolola fleeing the scene after the shooting, making him the first to positively identify Kolola at the scene.

'I think I just killed a cop,' ex-wife recalls

Annie Manning, who was married to Kolola for 11 years, said he phoned her around 11:50 p.m. to say, "I think I just killed a cop."

Manning said Kolola called her Iqaluit home six or seven more times from his apartment in Kimmirut.

But defence lawyer Andrew Mahar asked Manning under cross-examination about her statement to police, in which she said Kolola did not try to kill the officer. Manning said she did not remember saying that.

 Kolola Pitseolak, a friend and co-worker of the accused, testified Pingoatuk Kolola asked him to pick up the eight-month-old boy from the apartment and take the child to Kolola's in-laws.

After doing so, Pitseolak said, he returned to Kolola's apartment. "My normal life is over," Kolola said, according to Pitseolak. "I'll now be known as a cop killer."

Rifle, truck key found in home

Crown prosecutor Susanne Boucher used a projector to show the 12 jurors a police picture of Kolola's kitchen, with a rifle and a scope visible in one corner.

Pitseolak told the court that Kolola told him not to touch the rifle because his fingerprints would then end up on the firearm.

Another police photo showed a single key under the cushion of a chair in Kolola's living room. Pitseolak said it was the key to the half-tonne truck Kolola drove that night.

Both Kolola and Pitseolak surrendered to RCMP around 4 a.m.

First to file complaint

Earlier that night, Tikivik was the first resident to call the RCMP emergency dispatch with a drunk-driver complaint. Tikivik testified he lived about 160 metres from the construction site where Scott was eventually found shot.

On the night of Nov. 5, Tikivik said he had returned home around 10 p.m. and turned on the TV to watch sports but heard Kolola threatening and chasing his niece, Rosemary Kolola, outside the apartment.

Tikivik said he saw Pingoatuk Kolola using the blue half-tonne truck to ram a snowmobile, then hit the apartment building.

Later, Tikivik said, he saw Kolola backing up into the construction site, where the truck became stuck.

Tikivik said that after he called the RCMP to complain about the drunk driving, he spent much of his time looking out his apartment window until he saw the RCMP vehicle pull up to the construction site.

"I looked out the window and I could see the RCMP truck approaching," Tikivik told the court.

'Felt the gunshot'

Thinking the situation was under control, Tikivik said, he stepped away from the window and sat down for a few seconds before he felt his building shake.

"I felt the gunshot through my house," he said. "That's how I heard the bang, the shockwave or whatever."

Tikivik said he went back to the window and saw a man running in the direction of Kolola's apartment building.

Tikivik testified there was a street light in front of Kolola's apartment, so he could identify the man as he came closer.

"When he started approaching the telephone pole, I could see he was holding a baby in his right arm and a rifle in his left arm," Tikivik told the court, adding he saw a dangling white baby blanket.

"It was Ping. Then he goes straight to his apartment."

Tikivik is the seventh of about 20 Crown witnesses to testify at Kolola's trial, which is expected to last two to three weeks.