A bizarre portrait of the man shot and killed by police in a Vancouver Island trailer court is beginning to emerge.
Chris Bloomfield was clearly a troubled man with a voracious appetite for illicit drugs and a non-conventional lifestyle. However, there is much more to the man who police say came at them with “an edged weapon” forcing the officers who came to his trailer in the course of an assault investigation to shoot him. Bloomfield lived with his mother in the Cedar Creek Mobile Home Park on Shawnigan-Mill Bay Road.
Friends of Bloomfield, including several of the more than 1,300 friends on his Facebook page, ‘Chris Shroomfield’ — an apparent reference to his love of magic mushrooms — are posting messages of sympathy and astonishment.
“You can’t howl at the moon anymore, but you are the wolf,” wrote one friend. “You are the howl and you are the moon.”
Several friends wrote of Bloomfield’s gentle spirt and appreciation for nature.
READ MORE: Man killed by police identified as Chris Bloomfield
“I’m so sad that this happened. The circumstances of your passing shocked me because it’s so out of line from what I know of you. I will never forget the good times I had hanging out with you when we were younger. You were always a down-to-earth and kind soul,” wrote a female friend.
Two days before he died, Bloomfield himself, penned a rambling, sometimes pornographic account of a recent experience that he had endured, including a violent sexual attack by two men. In the more than 1,500 word post, Bloomfield described what started out as “a wonderful time at a hippy commune” party. He wrote about taking mushrooms, LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs, drinking wine and having sex.
“It was so grand and wonderful! I took a hit of LSD out of my mouth and pasted on the baby’s forehead as a blessing,” Bloomfield wrote, describing what preceded an attack by the two men who he believed objected to him putting the LSD on the baby’s face.
“These two men were raped as children by there Catholic priest. They ended up taking that out on me. They tried to bust my knees with a cane, they broke my toe with it, they hog tied me with ropes, they broke my bone cist (sic) on my hand, they did a satanic ritual on me with a knife to pay for their sins, on my hand, and then fractured my rib. They punched me multiple times in the side of the head trying to knock me out.”
A Duncan woman who says her son was a friend of Bloomfield, acknowledges the frequent visitor to her home had emotional problems but was peaceful and very articulate.
“Our home was a place where young people congregated to make music, play video games and eat my waffles for breakfast. They referred to themselves as The Breakfast Club,” Lehanna Green says. “Chris was welcome in our home.”
“He seemed to me to be a very spiritual person who offered the younger people non-violent solutions to resolve problems.”
Green says the Chris Bloomfield she knew was courteous and had respect for the rules of the home.
“Knowing I was a single mother on a skinny budget, he would often bring bags of healthy food for everyone to eat so they didn’t raid my fridge,” she recalls.
“Chris was a little older than my son and his friends so when I first met him I stuck around to get to know him and I was immediately satisfied, although he was a little bit older than them, he was coming into my home with something to offer his younger peers. They looked up to Chris and Chris was always available to them with his tender and peaceful demeanor.”
Green says she has questions about how the RCMP handled the situation on Saturday.
“I am absolutely certain that if Chris was given the opportunity to have some space and cool down, things would have turned out very differently on Saturday.
“I was very angry when learned it was Chris (that was) killed by the police. Why did they push their way in? Why didn’t they back off and give him the space he needed to cool down? This should have been a matter solved with time and patience instead of guns a blazin’.”
Green says she’s heard from a number of Bloomfield’s friends who are shocked by the sudden death.
“They’re trying to sort through their confusion and absolute devastation to reconcile how such a beautiful friend could be taken out in such a violent way.”
