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Const. David Wynn: St. Albert couple recount night of shooting

Const. David Wynn: St. Albert couple recount night of shooting

Rodney and Irene Codner were playing the same slot machine at the Apex Casino that night.

There was a commotion. Then everything went very bad, very fast.

“So when I look up, there’s three people charging towards us, Rodney Codner said. “I noticed that two people had vests on, they were police officers and they were chasing a guy.”

The next few moments have been burned into their memories. It would be hard to find anyone who doesn’t know what happened next in the wee hours after midnight on Jan. 17.

But the Codners were actually there that morning, and it all went down right on top of them.

“It happened so quick,” Rodney said. “My wife didn’t really have nowhere to go, so she ended up squatting down on the floor.”

“I turned around,” Irene said, “and I saw three of them there. The cop had a hold of him, and I saw him turn around and he had the gun in his hand, and he shot. And I saw the flash.”

“One officer, he tried to grab the guy from behind,” Rodney said, “and the guy turned around and shot him. And that was Constable Dave (Wynn), the one who got shot in the head. He went down. And the other officer tried to grab (the gunman) afterwards, and there was a little bit of a struggle. And then he shot him.”

'Everything was full of blood'

The Codners both ended up on the floor.

The gunman ran for the door. “When he was going out the door, he looked back to see if anybody was chasing,” Rodney said. “And we locked eyeballs then, as I was watching him leave.

“He could have shot myself and my wife at any time. If he had it in his head to shoot us, he could have. There was nothing stopping him.”

The Codners remember getting up off the floor.

“Then I noticed the one officer, he was sitting on the floor,” Rodney said. “The other officer was lying on his stomach almost, and there was no movement. I went over and turned him on his side. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead. That’s when he started gasping for air. And I saw there was a lot of blood on the floor, and coming from his head.”

“I was yelling to call an ambulance and call the police.”

The police showed up quickly, and came in with shotguns, Rodney said.

The Codners were checked over by paramedics.

“We were shaking,” he said. “My hand was full of blood. My jeans, my jacket, everything was full of blood.”

The couple was then taken to a room, where they waited to be interviewed by police.

They didn’t get home to see their children until after seven in the morning.

A hard time finding help

Constable David Wynn died in hospital a few days after the shooting, His partner, Derek Bond, survived his serious injuries.

The gunman, Shawn Rehn, shot himself hours after he ran out of the casino.

In the weeks since then, the Codners have struggled with nightmares, sleep loss. They say their doctor has diagnosed them with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“We were very lucky that we weren’t killed,” Rodney said. “I thank God for that. Somebody was looking out for us.”

The Codners have been receiving counselling. They say they decided to share their story now because they’re having a hard time dealing with what happened, and because they feel forgotten.

“At first we thought we might be able to do it ourselves,” Rodney said. “You almost feel like you’re abandoned.”

“Like we weren’t there in the first place,” his wife said. “Like we were invisible.”