A Calgary hockey player is one of two people facing charges after Airdrie RCMP and members of the Calgary Police Service (CPS) seized drugs, cash and guns from a Calgary home.

Police searched a home in Forest Lawn on Saturday, seizing 1616 suspected fentanyl pills, 3.5 ounces of suspected fentanyl powder, seven grams of suspected carfentanil pills, 25 morphine pills and 9.5 ounces of methamphetamine.

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Along with the drugs, officers seized $15,000 in Canadian cash and what is believed to be $5,000 in counterfeit American Cash.

Police also found two guns, including an assault-style rifle.

Ivo Musa, 31, of Calgary faces 11 charges including:

• Possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking
• Possession of carfentanil for the purpose of trafficking
• Possession of methamphetamine for the purpose of trafficking
• Proceeds of crime over $5000
• Weapons offences
• Breaches of court orders

Heidi Helen Moran, also of Calgary, was arrested on outstanding warrants from four separate police forces across the province. She was also charged with the same 11 offences as Musa.

Airdrie RCMP identified Musa as a former Calgary junior hockey player, who according to hockeydb.com, is a forward shooter who has played for the British Columbia Hockey League, Alberta Junior Hockey League and the Alberta College Athletic Conference.

The investigation was led by the RCMP’s crime reduction unit, which targets suspects who are thought to be supplying fentanyl and other drugs to the Airdrie and Rockyview County areas. CPS and members of the RCMP’s federal serious and organized crime yeam assisted in the investigation.

A Mount Royal University student and the former captain of its hockey team has been charged in a brutal attack on an MRU professor after a break-in at her Calgary home last weekend, CBC News has learned. 

Originally from Truro, N.S., Matthew Brown, 26, is facing charges of assault with a weapon and break-and-enter after a faculty member was brutalized with a broom handle, according to sources. The business student, who used to play in the QMJHL, is currently suspended and not allowed on campus, according to the university.

The victim, who is in her mid-60s, has a broken hand, requires surgery and also suffered torn tendons and severe bruising. 

Naked man broke into home

“[She] is understandably terrified and it will take a long time for her to get over this trauma,” said a family spokesperson. “It’s affecting every aspect of her life.”

CBC News has agreed not to name the victim, who fears for her safety. 

The woman lives in the community of Springbank Hill in southwest Calgary. Her family says the suspect had been at a nearby party.

The victim woke from a deep sleep after what sounded like an explosion, which was her glass door being smashed. She got up to investigate and was immediately attacked by a naked man who hit her repeatedly with a broom handle.

“It was very violent,” said one of the woman’s family members.

She was able to lock herself in the bathroom and then fled to a neighbour’s house where they let her in and called 911.

The family has been told police believe the suspect may have been on drugs at the time of the attack.

Banned from campus

The Mount Royal connection “appears to be a coincidence” the university claimed in an email to staff, which says there is no indication the two had ever met or that the attack was targeted.

“Our first and foremost concern is for the well-being of the victim, who was injured and is now at home recuperating,” reads the email.

Brown is suspended “and will not be permitted on campus or at MRU events during the course of the suspension,” according to an email sent to all university staff.

The family points out the victim “dedicated her life to Mount Royal students.” She is off work for at least the rest of the semester while she recovers.

The family has thanked Mount Royal colleagues and faculty for the “heartwarming” outpouring of support they’ve received since the attack.

Brown captain of Mount Royal team

Brown began playing on the Mount Royal team in 2012 and was captain from 2014 until last year.

Before arriving in Calgary, Brown — who is six feet tall and weighs 200 pounds — played in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), first with the Moncton Wildcats from 2008 to 2010 and then with the Quebec Remparts, where he was “brought up under the wing of legendary NHL Hall-of-Famer goalie, Patrick Roy,” according to a profile written on Brown last year in the Calgary Journal.

Brown has been released on bail.

Just days before Christmas, a Calgary woman’s apartment was surrounded by tactical units with guns drawn. Responding to a realistic-sounding 911 call, Calgary police believed a man had been shot and two others were being held hostage in the home.

A week later, an unarmed Kansas man was shot dead on his porch after a bogus emergency call about a hostage-taking prompted police to surround his house in Wichita.

Not only were both incidents cases of “swatting” – a hoax designed to get a police SWAT team to respond to fake emergency calls about a gunman or a bomb – they were allegedly perpetrated by the same California man.

Calgary police said Tuesday they have charged Tyler Raj Barriss, 25, of Los Angeles, with mischief and fraud charges following the incident on Dec. 22 that saw officers along with police dogs surround the unnamed woman’s apartment. Police revealed few other details but said investigators identified a suspect who had made contact online with the woman earlier that day and that she was targeted because of her “online persona.”

Mr. Barriss is being held without bail in Los Angeles in connection with the hoax emergency call that resulted in the fatal police shooting in Kansas on Dec. 28. Police say Andrew Finch, 28, moved his hands toward his waist when he was killed.

Mr. Barriss has an alleged history of making bogus calls to authorities.

In the Calgary case, no one was hurt. But police warn the increase they are seeing in swatting calls puts everyone in danger.

“It’s very frustrating because we have to take these calls seriously, we have to take them at face value,” said Calgary Police Service Acting Deputy Inspector Peter Siegenthaler. “It puts not just officers, but the public at risk.”

On the evening of Dec. 22, Calgary 911 received a call from a man who claimed he had shot his father and was holding his mother and younger brother hostage, and giving an address in Calgary’s Bankview neighbourhood. Officers from patrol and the tactical unit were dispatched to the low-rise apartment building and began evacuating other units.

At about the same time, the woman had been warned by an “online colleague or friend” about the swatting hoax, Deputy Insp. Siegenthaler said. She called 911 herself and, as she exited her apartment, police confirmed there was no shooting or hostage situation.

“Anyone can make these calls. You don’t have to be very sophisticated,” Deputy Insp. Siegenthaler said. “We know that swatters can be teenagers in their bedroom making a swatting call while Mom and Dad watch TV.”

The hoax call that resulted in the fatal police shooting in Kansas reportedly was made after a dispute over a small wager online in a Call of Duty online video game tournament, according to Dexerto, a news service focused on gaming. However, the mother of the victim has said Mr. Finch was not a video game player.

Last week, Mr. Barriss told a Los Angeles Superior Court judge he would not fight efforts to send him to Wichita to face charges.

He has been charged in Kansas with making a false alarm, according to court documents. The charge for calling police or a fire department and knowingly giving false information is a low-level felony in Kansas that carries a maximum of 34 months in prison.

He is next scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 17.

Mr. Barriss was released from the Los Angeles county jail last year after serving less than half of a two-year, eight-month sentence for phoning in two fake bomb threats in 2015 that cleared out ABC Studios in Glendale, Calif., just north of Los Angeles.

Glendale police said at the time that Mr. Barriss lived with his grandmother and was unemployed. There was no evidence to indicate that he would have actually carried out those threats.

Investigators later connected him to about 20 other alleged incidents involving bogus phoned-in threats to universities and media outlets, said Glendale Police spokesman Sergeant Dan Suttles.

With files from Andrea Woo and The Associated Press

The University of Calgary is conducting a review after learning that one of its students has been convicted of a sex crime against a 13-year-old girl.

Former junior hockey player Connor Neurauter, 21, pleaded guilty to sexual interference of the girl last week in Kamloops. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail, but will not start that sentence until May 4 because the court agreed not to interfere with his school semester at the U of C. VICE published a story about Neurauter Monday, which garnered considerable outrage; a petition calling for him to be expelled from the school was launched online and has gained more than 11,000 signatures.

In a statement sent to VICE Tuesday, the U of C said it recently became aware of Neurauter’s conviction and is now “reviewing the situation.”

“We can confirm that Mr. Neurauter is not on the university campus this week. We will provide further information when it is available,” the statement says. It goes on to say the university is “committed to providing a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment for our campus community” and has policies in place to ensure that will happen.

Neurauter pleaded guilty to soliciting nude photos of the 13-year-old girl and later threatening her with them in order to force her to keep their relationship a secret, according to Kamloops This Week. He was originally additionally charged with one count of child pornography possession. She also told police that he choked her with his hands and before he gifted her a bra.

The girl’s mother told the Calgary Sun she was frustrated at the way the court consistently accommodated Neurauter’s hockey and school schedules.

“‘Sorry, he’s unavailable for court because he has a hockey tournament. He’s unavailable for court because he has exams. He’s unavailable to come do his plea on his own because he’s in the middle of studying,’” she said.

After VICE published a story on Neurauter, he either removed or hid his Facebook profile. While his Twitter account hasn’t been active since 2016, a number of his old tweets appear to make sexist and racist comments.

In one tweet he says, “Don’t wear muscle shirts if you have the physique of a holocaust victim.” He also retweeted an account making fun of women for being “sluts.”

Robert Mazzuca, commissioner of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League, told VICE Neurauter played a couple games in his league prior to being charged. At the time he was charged, Mazzuca said Neurauter was playing for a BC team.

He said he was appalled to hear Neurauter’s sentence and court dates were pushed off due to hockey and school.

“To me that’s an excuse more than anything,” he said. “It’s disappointing and shocking to say the least.”

In the NOJHL, Mazzuca said any player charged with a sexual offence would be asked to remove himself from the league until the matter is resolved. If convicted, he said the player would be removed from the league. He also said the social media feeds of players in his league are monitored for “derogatory” comments.

In September, VICE reported on law students at the University of Ottawa who wanted to see an incoming student who pleaded guilty to assault banned from the school. At that time, the University of Ottawa declined to comment on the case.

During sentencing, Barrons’ lawyer argued prison time would prevent him from going to law school. His sentencing decision notes that he is a “model citizen” and that law school will be an “ideal forum for requiring Mr. Barrons, as a condition of his probation, to provide educational sessions for the community about his offence, his experience with the criminal justice system, and the principles and goals of sentencing.”

Last month, Newfoundland man Lancelot Saunders was given an absolute discharge after attacking his ex-girlfriend because the judge was worried that a conviction would ruin his chances of getting into university. Though the judge said the case was a one-off, Saunders later seemed to be gloating at the outcome on his Instagram feed and claimed his ex “wanted attention.”

Women’s advocates say cases like these show that the justice system continues to prioritize the futures of offenders over victims’ trauma.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.