A man convicted of the attempted murder of two Yukon RCMP officers in 2011 is facing four charges of breach of a long-term supervision order as well as being unlawfully at large.
Christopher Jonathan Cornell, 43, appeared before Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Provincial Court Judge Gregory Rideout June 13 on the charges.
He was convicted of the attempted murder of two officers after he fired into a police vehicle.
A B.C. Court of Appeal decision rejecting his appeal of the conviction said he was wearing a hat with the slogan ‘F*** the police’ at the time.
Cornell was convicted of robbery and attempted murder Sept. 26, 2011 after he shot at an RCMP officer during a high-speed chase following the robbery of a general store in Haines Junction, Yukon.
He was also convicted of aggravated assault, robbery, discharging a firearm with intent to prevent arrest, discharging a firearm at an RCMP vehicle and assault.
Cornell, then 33, was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison in 2014. Another person in the case was sentenced separately.
He was later designated a long-term offender and put on a 10-year supervision order to begin when he completed his incarceration.
However, according to provincial court documents, Cornell has allegedly breached those supervision orders in four instances. He is also alleged to have done drugs contrary to that order on Jan. 8 and Jan. 12, 2024.
It’s alleged he breached that order on June 14 and 15, 2023 by consuming, purchasing or possessing drugs other than those prescribed or obtained over the counter.
Further, Cornell is charged with being unlawfully at large before expiry of an imprisonment sentence Oct. 1-4, 2022.
Cornell’s case is one among multiple allegations of long-term supervision order breaches against various offenders currently before the province’s courts.
Most recently, convicted sex offender Randall Hopley was sentenced in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Provincial Court to spend another 18 months in jail after pleading guilty to breaching long-term supervision order conditions on two occasions in 2022 and 2023.
He caused widespread city concern in November 2023 after he vanished from his designated residence in the Downtown Eastside for 10 days and cut off his ankle monitor.
A recent Glacier Media investigation showed an uptick in such breach allegations in B.C.
