Photo courtesy of MHPS - The safe from the Saving Centre Grocery sits in the trunk of the would-be getaway vehicle involved in the Aberdeen Street shootout.

By Alex McCuaig

Aberdeen shootout

50th anniversary of Aberdeen Street shootout

Jul 26, 2019 | 5:44 PM

It was a legendary shootout in the history of Medicine Hat which left a culprit shot dead in the street, a city policeman shot in the face and 11 civilians taken captive, including the chief of police.

Friday marked the 50^th anniversary of the shootout on Aberdeen Street with a former hostage and the first responding officer recalling it as a night they would never forget.

Pat Feeney was 18 at the time when he and his friend were driving down the street and were pulled out of the car by gun point just before 2 a.m. on July 26, 1969.

“We saw some police lights on the street on Aberdeen and we were driving up and all of a sudden we had guns thrown in our face in the vehicle and told to get out,” said Feeney.

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Victor Roeder and Raymond Bradley had been attempting to rob a safe from the former Saving Centre Grocery location at the time with the attempted break and enter quickly devolving into a far more serious incident.

The incident began with a call to Medicine Hat police constable Pat Flinn who was responding to the scene of a break and enter.

“It was Stampede night, it was rainy. We got a call that there was a break and enter in progress so I came up on Fourth Avenue from downtown and parked my police car at the end of the intersection just so I could see what was going on,” said Flinn, 50 years later at the scene of the shootout. “And one of the persons involved in this break and enter approached me and I didn’t see a weapon until he was within four or five feet of me and he had a rifle.”

Flinn was taken hostage followed by Constable Roy Funk who arrived at the scene shortly after his fellow officer.

Two more city police officers were then taken hostage along with six civilians – including Feeney and his friend Grant Fox.

Flinn said Roeder was acting erratically and could not be talked down with the armed culprit lifting his pistol to Funk’s head, “and he shot him in the face. That bullet went through his face and into my hat.”

Feeney remembered it the same way and that, “for some reason, he just shot him. . .it didn’t look like there was any aggravation or anything, they just shot him.”

Former police chief Sam Drader lived across the street from the incident and tried to negotiate the release of the hostages but found himself becoming the 11^th captive.

With 11 people being held hostage inside and backup officers being held at bay outside, Roeder made a fatal dash outside the shop, firing from pistols in each hand.

“He went racing up – almost like in a western – shooting these handguns towards the officers who were there and one of the officers had a shotgun and as he got close, he opened up and that was the end of him,” said Flinn.

Feeney also recalled the suddenness of Roeder’s actions.

“In the end, one of them went running across the street when a police car pulled up, firing two weapons at them – both hands firing at them and they shot him with a shotgun,” said Feeney.

In the ensuing confusion, the hostages escaped the scene with Bradley arrested at the scene and eventually being sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail on a litany of offences.

Current police chief Andy McGrogan said the lessons learned from that shootout 50 years ago pulled the service from the dark ages to the world of modern policing.

“Our training and equipment is the biggest part of our budget and without it, we’d be no different than what these guys were doing,” said McGrogan.