Next week marks the 60th anniversary of a fatal police shooting that is still vividly remembered in Whitbourne.
On Dec. 17, 1964, 24-year-old RCMP Constable Robert Amey was shot dead after tracking down a group of convicts who had escaped from Her Majesty’s Penitentiary.
Const. Amey and his partner had set up a road block on the under-construction Trans-Canada Highway in hopes of cutting the fugitives off.
But they blew through the roadblock in a stolen car, and ended up in Whitbourne.
RCMP Constable Robert Amey (Submitted/RCMP)
Amey and his partner caught up with the fugitives and they ended up in a physical altercation. During the melee one of the escapees wrestled Amey’s partner’s sidearm away from him and fired the gun, killing Amey instantly.
RCMP participated in a memorial service in Whitbourne last weekend at the Anglican Church of Saint John the Baptist.
Amey was one of two RCMP officers who lost their lives in the line of duty in Newfoundland and Labrador. The other was 21-year-old Constable Terrence Hoey who was shot in a standoff at the Harbourview Cafe in Botwood in 1958.
Constable William Moss, who was struck in the head and killed in the Badger Riot in 1959, was a member of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.
