Man charged in killings of Edmonton police officers sold gun to shooter for $2,500: court documents

The man accused of supplying the gun used to kill two Edmonton police officers was in court Monday. CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson reports.

**Warning: This article contains details that may be disturbing to some readers.**

The trial is underway for the man accused of supplying the gun that was used to kill two Edmonton Police Service officers and seriously injure a restaurant worker.

Dennis Okeymow is charged with three counts of manslaughter and three counts of negligence causing death in the deaths of constables Travis Jordan and Brett Ryan, and the teenage boy who fatally shot them.

He is also charged with two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm in the shootings of the boy’s mother the night the officers died and a Pizza Hut worker days earlier.

Jordan and Ryan were fatally shot outside an apartment suite in the Inglewood neighbourhood on March 16, 2023, during a family dispute call involving a 16-year-old boy.

The teenage shooter shot his then-55-year-old mother before he fatally shot himself.

Police say the same teen shot a Pizza Hut employee at the restaurant near his apartment on March 12, before the shooting of the two officers.

The worker survived the shooting.

Okeymow was arrested and charged in November 2023.

On Monday he pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter and criminal negligence charges against him, but guilty to two drug-related charges and a charge of unlawfully transferring a firearm knowing he was not authorized to do so.

Agreed statement of facts

According to the agreed statement of facts, the shooter was a 16-year-old student at Ross Sheppard High School in March 2023.

He lived with his mother and father in a two-bedroom apartment at the Baywood Park complex.

He had been buying controlled substances, primarily cannabis, from Okeymow since 2021.

The pair exchanged more than 600 Snapchat messages during the course of their relationship.

In January he bought a semi-automatic rifle, which at the time was an unrestricted firearm, and ammunition from Okeymow for $2,500.

The same gun with ammunition would have cost $650 if purchased legally from a store.

Okeymow was 18 at the time of the sale. Neither he nor the shooter had a firearms licence or training through the Canadian Firearms Program.

Okeymow was also under a court-ordered weapons prohibition order at the time he sold the rifle to the shooter.

According to the court documents the shooter initially asked Okeymow for a handgun.

The pair started discussing a firearm transaction in January.

On Jan. 24 the shooter refused the offer of the rifle, saying he only had $1,500.

On Jan. 29 he asked Okeymow if he would still sell the rifle for $2,500.

The sale, which included 80 rounds of ammunition, took place near the shooter’s apartment.

According to the court documents, Okeymow knew the shooter was only 16.

The gun was initially purchased from Cabela’s in south Edmonton in 2016 by a person with a firearm licence and later sold to a second person who also had a licence.

That person told police he sold it to an unknown person.

The gun was reclassified in 2024 as a prohibited weapon.

Okeymow sold cannabis and cocaine to the shooter on two more occasions in February of 2023.

Pizza Hut shooting

On March 12 the shooter, wearing a mask, took the gun to the Pizza Hut near his home and shot an employee once in the head before running from the scene.

The distance from the door to the counter was approximately three feet.

There was no attempt to rob the store and no previous threats to any employees. The attack was random.

The worker survived but suffered life-altering injuries.

Police recovered shell casings from the scene, but they didn’t match any firearms in the system.

On March 16, the day the two EPS officers were shot, Okeymow sent the shooter a message asking him if he had heard about the shooting.

“Yo you hear what happened,” he wrote.

“Right by your crib”

Shooting of EPS officers

The court documents show the shooter attacked his mother in their shared apartment on the night of March 15, choking her until she lost consciousness.

She woke up and ran from the apartment and someone in another building called 911 on her behalf.

She told the 911 operator she didn’t know if her son had any weapons.

“He tried to kill me and I’m just worried because he will kill himself,” she said.

Jordan and Ryan arrived at the apartment at 12:26 a.m. on March 16.

They met up with the shooter’s mother, and the trio walked up the stairs to the second floor apartment.

According to the shooter’s mother, the teen opened the door to the apartment and ambushed her and the two officers.

Both officers were shot multiple times in the head and immediately suffered fatal wounds.

The shooter’s mother was hit in the neck and jaw and immediately ran to another apartment building to call 911 again.

The teen went into the apartment and shot himself in the forehead, an act that was witnessed by his father.

At 12:46 a.m. EPS began receiving multiple 911 calls to the building about two police officers who had been shot.

At 12:49 a.m. police dispatch attempted to contact Jordan and Ryan and additional officers were dispatched to the scene.

The shooter was found face down on the floor with the rifle next to him.

His mother was taken to hospital and survived the shooting.

An autopsy found the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the toxicology report was negative.

Four bullet holes were found in the door and doorframe of the apartment kitty-corner from where the shooter lived.

In total, 11 shots were fired from the rifle.

Police determined that 10 of them were fired in the shooting that killed Ryan and Jordan, and one in the Pizza Hut shooting.

Ryan’s service pistol was found fully loaded at his feet, Jordan’s pistol was still in its holster.

The shooter’s fingerprints were found on the rifle, no other prints were found on the gun.

Police did not find any evidence of equipment to safely store or transport the rifle in the apartment.

Additionally, they did not find any information that the shooter’s parents knew he was in possession of the rifle.

Casings from the shooting of the two officers were compared to casings from the Pizza Hut shooting and they were found to be a match.

Officers also located the mask worn by the shooter during the Pizza Hut shooting.

The shooter’s phone was seized from the apartment in an attempt to find out where the shooter got the weapon, but investigators were not able to determine a motive for the Pizza Hut shooting.

Okeymow was arrested on July 25, 2023, on an unrelated matter before his arrest in November on the charges relating to the shootings.

Shooter’s mental health

Records show the shooter had experienced an ongoing mental health crisis in 2022 that included calls to police.

He displayed hallucinations and underwent a six-week mental health assessment.

He was ultimately diagnosed with schizophreniform disorder, a mental health condition that causes psychosis.

His condition improved somewhat when he started taking anti-psychotics and stopped using cannabis, but he later stopped taking his medication and started using cannabis again.

On Nov. 9, 2022, he was arrested under the Mental Health Act and admitted to the Royal Alexandra Hospital’s Child Psychiatry Unit after expressing homicidal and suicidal ideations.

After he was released on Dec. 2, 2022, he stopped taking his medication and did not return to school.

From early 2022 to the day he died he was the subject of multiple police calls due to his deteriorating psychiatric condition.

There is no evidence he ever shared his struggles with Okeymow.

Okeymow’s trial continues this week.

A firearms expert is expected to testify on Tuesday.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Amanda Anderson.