In the early morning hours of November 5, 1995, an assassin scaled the fence of 24 Sussex Drive, the official residence of the Canadian Prime Minister in Ottawa. He successfully evaded security patrols for nearly an hour, all while finding his way to the Prime Minister’s bedroom. Facing a locked door with his target on the other side, there was a tense standoff before security arrived and apprehended this dangerous criminal. While this could have been remembered as a very close call for an assassination attempt on a head of state, it has gone down as one of the biggest security blunders in modern times.
André Dallaire, the perpetrator, was there that morning to kill Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, but he was no trained assassin, and his tactics were everything less than stealthy. The mentally-ill convenience store worker arrived around 2 a.m. and announced his presence to all who could hear. He waved at security cameras and threw stones onto the grounds and towards the house. Getting tired of this after about a quarter of an hour, he climbed over the fence and approached the house. After smashing a window to gain entry, he wandered around the ground floor for a half hour, knife in hand, with no apparent destination. He caused enough of a stir to wake Aline Chrétien, the Prime Minister’s wife, who came out of her bedroom to find the source of the noise when she encountered Dallaire. She ran back to the bedroom, roused the Prime Minister, and locked the door.
Dallaire, stymied by the door and with no plan in place, simply put his knife down and awaited his fate. There were no security forces in or even around the house, one of the reasons that Daillare was able to quite loudly stroll into and around the residence of a major politician. This also meant that once Mrs. Chrétien phoned for help, it took over seven minutes for officers to arrive and apprehend the criminal, a time that perhaps would not have been so slow if the watchman hadn’t forgotten his key to the residence.
As a result of this most embarassing event, several police officers and their supervisors were suspended and reassigned. Dallaire was placed into a home for the mentally ill and given a steady course of medication, which he claimed quieted the voices that had instructed him to go after the Prime Minister in the first place. Security was significantly improved at 24 Sussex, just in case anyone with more forethought and malice attempted a similar feat. André Dallaire, espousing a Canadian sense of duty and remorse, heartily apologized for the entire affair.