Police in Canada have identified the heavily armed perpetrators of a daring bank robbery last week as twin brothers whose social media posts show an obsession with guns and fears of government “tyranny” and an interest in infamous bank heists.
On Saturday, police identified Matthew and Isaac Auchterlony, 22, as the two men killed after attempting to rob a bank in Saanich, British Columbia.
The brothers walked into a Bank of Montreal branch Tuesday morning wearing black clothing and bulletproof vests.
At that time, there were nearly 20 people in the bank. “The energy from them was completely calm,” Shelley Fryer, who was there for a meeting with the branch manager, told CTV News. “When they spoke, it was in calm voices.”
When police arrived, a chaotic shootout ensued as the brothers left the bank. The twins were killed in the shootout and six police officers were injured, including three with serious gunshot wounds.
“At first I thought it was fireworks, so I ran to the window and looked out. And it was just a hail of bullets flying everywhere and the cops locked the whole place down,” Christopher Lee Ford, who lives in the area, told Capital Daily in Victoria. He and his family took shelter in their dining room. “I watched two cops get shot.”
Police ordered businesses and residents to evacuate the area after multiple explosive devices were found, shutting down the area for several days.
“This is something that shakes up the community,” Saanich Police Chief Dean Duty told reporters in the hours after the shooting.
But the brothers’ actions during the botched heist leave the victims searching for answers.
“I just don’t know what they wanted. What were they waiting for?” Fryer said. “They had taken all the money. They could just take the money and leave right away. They would be in and out before the police got there.
Although they arrived at the bank heavily armed and with a cache of explosives, police say neither brother had a criminal record and was not previously known to police.
But Isaac Auchterlony’s Instagram account, which has since been taken down, described a growing hostility toward the federal government and a fixation on firearms. Interspersed throughout the account were images of the young man shooting rifles in the woods and a glorification of previous famous bank robberies.
One post shared excerpts from a documentary about the North Hollywood shootout, a 1997 bank robbery in which two heavily armed men injured more than a dozen people during a standoff with police.
Other publications mention conflict between the Irish Republican Army and British soldiers and police, as well as the Waco siege, when federal officers and soldiers stormed a Branch Davidian religious compound in Texas in 1993.
Auchterlony has also voiced fierce opposition to the Covid-19 vaccination, as well as recent gun control legislation proposed by the federal government.
“When they’re trying to give a vaccine, they’re also trying to take guns,” the post read, followed by the hashtags #tryandtakeit and #getwhatyoudeserve and #fuckyoutrudeau, in reference to the prime minister.
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He also uses the hashtags #tyranny, #donttreadonme and “tyranrepellent #tryandtakeit” when posting images of guns.
Nearly a week after the shooting, police have yet to release a timeline of events, including who fired first.
“There are still many questions and investigative efforts that need to be undertaken to fully understand what happened and why,” Corporal Alex Berube said at a press conference Saturday.
“The motive behind the armed robbery and subsequent shootout with police has not yet been determined.”
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