Accused in Chinatown homicides was dropped off in Edmonton by RCMP 3 days before killings

Three days before two men were fatally beaten last month in Edmonton's Chinatown, a man now accused in both homicides was dropped off in the city by RCMP officers, CBC News has learned.

RCMP officers with the Parkland detachment dropped off Justin Bone in west Edmonton on May 15, even though bail conditions prohibited him from being in Edmonton unsupervised.

Edmonton Police Service officers spoke to Bone later the same day but didn't detain him because "no criminal offence was observed," EPS said in a statement Thursday.

Bone, 36, was arrested May 18 in the killings of 64-year-old Hung Trang and 61-year-old Ban Phuc Hoang.

He is charged with two counts of second-degree murder. Trang was beaten at an autobody shop and Hoang was assaulted inside his electronics store on the same street.

The killings have sparked outrage over high rates of crime in Chinatown and prompted calls to halt the release of incarcerated offenders into Edmonton's core.

In late May, referencing the homicides, Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro used his power under the Police Act to demand a report from the City of Edmonton on what is being done to get crime in the city's core under control. 

On Thursday, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi outlined a comprehensive safety plan. Sohi said the city plans to urge the government to stop releasing offenders from provincial corrections facilities onto the streets of Edmonton.

Now, a family friend who had been housing Bone in Alberta Beach, 70 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, accuses RCMP and Edmonton police of ignoring his warnings about the danger Bone could pose to public safety.

"This is like a starlight ride in reverse," the man said in an interview, referencing a widely condemned police practice, which came to light in Saskatchewan years ago, in which officers picked up Indigenous people and dropped them off in remote rural areas.

"You drop them off in the middle of the city and made sure it was a City of Edmonton problem." 

CBC has agreed to not identify the man. As mandated by the courts, Bone was living with him while out on bail.

Court documents show Bone, a repeat offender, was released from the Edmonton Remand Centre on April 26, 22 days before the killings.

Charged in a break-and-enter, he was granted bail under strict conditions including a curfew and a weapons ban. He was prohibited from consuming or possessing drugs or alcohol.