Parents’ plea to son: “Sawyer, please come back to us.”

A visibly distraught Ray Robison, father of Sawyer Clarke Robison, made an emotional plea to his son, Thursday, during an RCMP press conference held in Killam.

“Sawyer, please come back to us,” Robison said.

“Swallow your hurt and listen to the quiet world.

“You and Brad have more support than you could imagine.”

Robison’s wife, Carol Clarke, stood at his side as he read the statement to their son.

After Robison’s statement, the couple immediately left the press conference.

RCMP confirmed that as of yesterday afternoon, Sawyer Clarke Robison was officially charged with two charges of attempted murder in the shooting of two RCMP members from the Killam detachment.

Canada-wide warrants have been issued for his arrest.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Patrick Webb advised today “that’s mainly to provide police with the option of arrestibility”, whereas a ‘Person of Interest’ does not.

Information given at Thursday’s conference also gave a little clarity to the chain of events leading up to the shooting.

It was confirmed that four RCMP members approached the residence to execute a search warrant for a firearm, and that there was a relation to an incident which occurred a few days earlier near Hardisty.

Two members entered the residence, Cst. Sheldon Shah and Cst. Sid Gaudette.

Police have mentioned that Sgt. Greg Gerbrandt was one of the other two members on site, but have not released the name of the fourth officer.

Police today confirmed that there were two people in the residence at the time, one being Sawyer Clarke Robison, the other Brad Clarke, who was tentatively named as the deceased, pending official identification through autopsy.

Previous reports said Robison was seen leaving the rural residence as the four officers arrived.

The two RCMP members were inside the residence when gunfire broke out.

RCMP would not confirm who they believe actually shot the downed RCMP members, and stressed that Robison is the only other person who witnessed the shooting, and urged him to come forward and tell his story.

RCMP confirmed that upgrading Robison’s status from ‘Person of Interest’ to laying charges came about from the ongoing investigation, giving police “reasonable probable grounds” to make the charge.

RCMP too, urged Robinson to come forward. “It is very important that this message get out,” Sgt. Patrick Webb told media, “We want to, on the RCMP side, as well as from the family side, and this whole community, we want to resolve the issue as peacefully as possible, we don’t want anything else to happen in any way.”

To Robison directly, Webb added, “Come forward and get in contact with us and we can resolve this peacefully.”

Webb also gave a brief update on the status of the injured officers, saying that they are recovering well in the hospital, “Doing as well as can be expected after being shot, but at the same time they do have a long pathway to come back.”