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“I just kept telling them, ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’”
Drew Butler didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. The 24-year-old had been playing video games yesterday at his Clayton Park apartment while Halifax Police were frantically trying to arrest him. Someone had anonymously sent in a tip to the cops that Butler was planning to go on a shooting spree at Mic Mac Mall.
“They pretty much came to my house with a SWAT team and took me out,” Butler said during a phone call last night after he was released without charge. “They were inside my apartment with machine guns and shit. They were going to break my door down if I didn’t come out.”
He, his sister and his sister’s boyfriend were arrested yesterday afternoon and let go a few hours later after questioning.
“The two men and one woman were cooperative with police and investigators do not believe at this time that they were involved in this matter,” last night’s police report reads. “As a result, they were released without charge. There is no information to suggest continued threats to Mic Mac Mall.”
The Coast recently profiled Drew Butler’s stark experiences in and out of the prison system for our investigation into solitary confinement. He’s spent most of the last six years inside federal and provincial jails after a string of car thefts as a teenager. He also faced weapon charges in the past for having a gun. Since the end of his sentence in December, he’s been trying to find steady work and turn his life around. Just for the record, he says he had absolutely no plans yesterday to head to a mall and shoot anyone.
The news that there was another threat against another mall mobilized a hefty police and media presence yesterday. Butler only became aware of anything strange happening once people he knew started freaking out and sending him messages to phone the cops. I was one of those people.
Early Monday afternoon I received a call from a sergeant with Halifax Regional Police attempting to get in touch with Drew Butler. Because The Coast had written about him, the sergeant thought I might be able to give them Butler’s address or phone number. I asked if he was in trouble, but was only informed the matter was “urgent.” I promised to pass the sergeant’s name and number along to Butler and messaged him immediately after getting off the phone.
A couple hours later, the cops were at his door. The apartment he shares with his sister was raided as police searched for a 9mm handgun and ammunition he supposedly possessed.
“You should see it,” Butler said of the resulting mess. “I’m going to clean up later, but I’m just trying to get my head around what happened.”
After a few hours of questioning downtown—during which he repeatedly told police he had no idea what they were talking about—Butler was escorted outside for a smoke break. All of a sudden, he was being offered a drive home. He says no one told him that he wasn’t being charged. “Just, ‘See you later.’”
“I’m trying to figure out what I did,” he said. “I must have pissed somebody off if they’re calling Crime Stoppers saying I’m going to go into a mall and kill anybody.”
An online tip had come in to Crime Stoppers Tuesday morning that an “Andrew” had a gun and was going to shoot random people at Mic Mac Mall. Drew, it should be pointed out, is Butler’s legal first name. It’s not short for Andrew.
He knows all the details of the anonymous police tip because during the raid the cops accidentally left behind the documents. “We found them on the floor.”
I spoke with Butler around 10:30 last night when I got home. He read some of the details of the Crime Stoppers tip, which included photos of him seemingly pulled from his Facebook. We both found it strange the police would leave that information behind. Near the end of our call, there was a knock at his door. Two plainclothes officers had come back for the misplaced paperwork.
Unbeknownst to the police, Butler kept me on the line. I was recording the call anyway, to make notes for later. You can hear the exchange between Butler and the police below.
“That was left with the warrant?” one officer asked. “It’s Crime Stoppers. It’s supposed to be anonymous.”
“It’s not really anonymous if you leave it around,” Butler countered.
The officers also took some time on their way out to chat about the video game Butler had been playing. One was skilled in Call of Duty‘s “Zombie Mode.”
“He can probably beat you in it,” the officer’s partner boasted.
Understandably, it’s been a stressful night for Butler. He was fearful he was headed back to prison even though he knew he’d committed no crime.
“I’m just kind of pissed off,” Butler said. “My house is destroyed, all my sister’s shit is destroyed. They fucked everything up. What happened? I don’t even know what to do.”
Ironically, Butler had been invited to speak last night at a public panel criticizing Canada’s prison system. It was an opportunity to share some of his personal experiences that he’s sad to have missed.
“I was so excited to go to that, too,” he said. “Me and my sister sat up all night and did cue cards about what I was going to say.”
Instead, he was once again (temporarily) locked up. These false threats of spree killings at a mall—of terrorism—hang over him. The only person terrified after Tuesday is Drew Butler.
“Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any worse, you know?”
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This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2015.
THE CALLS ARE COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!!!
This is ridiculous that Police can receive a so-called anonymous tip and automatically act as if the accused is Guilty when they are not.
This guy is trying to put his life back on track and now has a rental unit that is demolished and will have mental anguish to come.
HRM Police need to compensate this guy to fix the mess they created by having the Officers be the ones to go in and clean the apartment up.
Hopefully he doesn’t get evicted from his landlord.
SHAME ON YOU HRM POLICE!!!!!!!!!!
With Bill C-51 that could happen to any one of us.
So what’s the point of having crimestoppers if they can’t act on anonymous tips? The criminal in this case is the person who made the anonymous tip. I do agree that they should be compensated or helped in some way to clean the mess the officers made.
Saying “shame on you police” doesn’t make any sense. They’re doing their job. Can you imagine the public outcry if they got this tip, did nothing, and a mall got shot up? It’s such a delicate balance, I’m glad I’m not making those decisions.
I feel very bad for Butler, sounds like he’s getting his life together and these things are clearly not helping him. On a positive note those two plain-clothed officers sounded like that gave him respect and were able to chat about video games with him. I hope this is how he was treated when he was detained earlier in the day.
“Has anyone ever thought he was set up because he was going to a meeting to talk about the way it is inside the prison walls? Maybe it was done so he would miss it and no one will hear the truth on how shitty it is in there.”
^First thing that occurred to me, too.
Pretty fishyy….
I like to tend to believe he more than likely pissed off someone through the “Gamergate” community online while playing his COD… (Left someone to die during a game… and they rage quit… searched him, got his info and went from there) They like to set people up like that all the time… it’s called “Swatting” and they find it amusing… Sadly though it’s not much fun for the victims… It’s also more common in the US and the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting
it’s not hard to research people online and once these hateful morons know who you are…they pull this crap and volia… if you don’t get killed by the police (IN the USA) due to this kind of stupid “Prank” then it’s a “good” day… I feel bad for this fella …
How bad at your job do you have to be to leave behind documents that could endanger a source’s life? Imagine if this guy was a legit threat and the Crimestoppers report was enough for him to figure out said source. When the police put someone’s life in danger by their ineptitude there is reason for disciplinary measures. How embarassing for our officers. They should have been apologetic in demeanor not boastful or challenging. Who gives a flying F if your partner plays Call of Duty! Waving your e-wang? Please.
Tell you one thing after reading that article I will NEVER use crimestoppers to report something: looks like HFXPD could get me and my family killed.
Leaving behind the documents is TERRIBLE and heads should honestly roll over it, but everything else in this story sounds like appropriate response to me with the current climate of things
This was an on-line tip. Can’t they track the IP address from internet provider??
Good points about leaving the documents. Never really considered that.
I should point out, in case it wasn’t clear, the documents left behind had the online tip info about Drew. It didn’t feature any details about who submitted the anonymous tip. Crime Stoppers being what it is, I’m not sure the police even have that information.
there is no personal info in those documents. they don’t ask for a name or contact info when submitting tips, as advertised by their company. the only way it would endanger the informant is if the details gave some indication as to who it was, like information that only select few people would have.
Nice of them to apologize.
Hmm, better think twice about what I post on here from now on, don’t want the police using The Coast to find me.
Drew if your really trying to get your life together then I am really sorry this happened to you.But really everyone the police received a tip that could have put a lot of people in danger.What would you want them to do,wait till someone is killed before they check on it.Get real I for one want them to do whatever it takes to keep everyone safe.
I want to hear more about what trevor saulnier has to say.
There should be something like insurance coverage or the city should pay to clean up his house for wrongful destruction of private property. This could potentially happen to anyone. I could just call an anonymous tip against anyone I dislike and have their personal property all destroyed very easily. Insurance or something should cover this… the cleanup itself and the replacement of any destroyed property.
We feel it necessary to provide perspective in relation to this article.
When we conduct a search, we leave behind a copy of the search warrant to demonstrate that we had legal authorization to be present and search the premises. We received information last night that we may have left additional paperwork behind at the residence we searched on Willett Street and sent officers to obtain it.
We’ve since determined that we inadvertently left behind paperwork about the Crime Stoppers tip, however, it did NOT contain information about the person who provided the information, as Jacob Boon has already pointed out in his comment above. It did contain information about the Crime Stoppers staff member who took the tip and what time it came in, a brief synopsis of the tip, and information and photos about the person of interest in this matter.
Given the severity of the threats, many officers involved in the call were provided with a copy of the information about the Crime Stoppers tip and the person of interest to ensure situational awareness as well as public and officer safety. Leaving the paperwork behind is a mistake on our behalf and it shouldn’t have happened. The officer who left the paperwork behind has come forward and owned his mistake. We are taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen in future.
Cst. Pierre Bourdages, Public Information Officer, Halifax Regional Police