The depth of the misogyny and racism in our justice system is unfathomable if one has not seen some aspect of it personally.
Does that also explain why, when black people are shot in the US the police "thought" that person had a gun and yet there are several YouTube videos of white guys walking around with guns and the cops being okay with it?
The RCMP is a para-military organization that is contracted to do community policing in some parts of the country. They are very bad at the job. They are incapable of taking a domestic abuse complaint as an imminent threat and the abusers face few consequences when evidence is presented. They also seem incapable of dealing with armed suspects with intent to kill police officers. They are only good at enforcing court injunctions against peaceful protestors on behalf of corporations. For instance they were extremely capable of mounting a coordinated military assault against peaceful demonstrators outside of Rexton.
The RCMP is going to export its policing model to the Ukraine. I'll bet it will be about how to carry out para-military operations like we saw recently in Northern BC and how to do crowd control like they did for the Vancouver Olympics or the G8 summits. Canada enabling fascism world wide.
https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/gazette/Ukrainian-police-talk-training-rcmp
The RCMP is a para-military organization that is contracted to do community policing in some parts of the country. They are very bad at the job. They are incapable of taking a domestic abuse complaint as an imminent threat and the abusers face few consequences when evidence is presented. They also seem incapable of dealing with armed suspects with intent to kill police officers.
One of the problems I have with the framing of people who shoot and kill RCMP officers as crazy people is that it takes the focus off any mis-steps the RCMP bureaucracy made that costs officers their lives. Take the shooting in Mayerthorpe, for instance. How was it decided to send 4 rookie officers after a known cop hater who was prone to voilence?
Of course the politicians and RCMP bureaucracy will call these officers heros. Calling them heros does not bring them back.
My ex was physically, verbally and emotionally abusive and police refused to offer protection or even a deterrant (this was many years ago). He came to where I was staying with our infant daughter and backhanded me in the face with an ashtray as I was trying to feed her. I called the police. They said they could charge him with property damage (he put a fist through a window after I locked him out) but apparently assaulting a woman holding a newborn got a free pass - they refused to lay assault charges. Law enforcement and the legal system are both systemically misogynistic and so long as they remain so women will continue to be at the mercy of violent partners. It deeply saddens me that more than three decades after my experience nothing has changed.
I've witnessed the other side of things. I've seen women assault men and then the men call the police the man ultimately gets arrested and charged for assault. Because "he's bigger" or used physical force to defend themselves like pushing back. I've seen a man call the police on his girlfriend and then get kicked out of his own house (along with his young younger) while the girlfriend was allowed to stay in the home.
I'm not "but what about men-ing?". Just there's some really weird inturputations of the law. It boggles my mind why your ex wasn't charged and arrested in your situation Meg. It's like our police don't use common sense. Do you remember if the attending officers were young or older?
Paladin, your post is a false equavelent on both the number of cases and on the severity of the violence. They are not the same. You also imply that it is men who should be entitled to stay in the home when violence erupts and that it is the women who should leave. You imply that it is the man's home when it is her home as well. You imply that women should lose their right to stay in their home when they do fight back.
Elizabeth Sheehy elaborates that "Women fighting back" plays into a host of stereotypes that women somehow are not really abused or battered when they do fight back. It somehow negates the deeper and more serious patterns of male abuse that many of these women have suffered by treating two as exactly the same.
This is also a negative slur against large women. Even when women do fight back who are taller than their men they are not physically and biologically the same as men. Their violence is not the same. It feeds into misogynistic men's stereotypes of women as being delicate and dainty and that it is not ladylike to fight back. It implies that women who are fat or tall are somehow less domestically assaulted and that the physical and psychological damage that they suffered is less due to their size.
Sheehy mentions how black women and First Nations Women are more inclined to fight back. It boils down to a long standing and deeply rooted mistrust of the police. She also notes that many First Nations women who live in remote areas do not have ready access to shelters so they are forced to fend for themselves.
Edit to add...
Here is a Rsbble podcast of Meghan Murphy interviewing Elizabeth Sheehy on aboriginal women and on women who fight back.
Misfit I reread my post with the intention of maybe editing it if it wasn't saying what I wanted to after reading your response. Without getting too far off track I didn't explain the example very well sorry. The man owned the house and had shared custody of his child. His girlfriend of a couple months(not the mom) was staying over, she had a home of her own. In this case the man didn't assault the woman and wasn't arrested for assault, there was an argument and he called the police. The police made him leave anyways. He was back in in 2 or 3 weeks but a really weird situation.
The context I brought it up was that police make some strange decisions, just like with Megs case of how someone who clearly assaulted her wasn't charged with assault. I'd like to see a lot of those cases reinvestigated. The military is going back 20 years and reinvestigating sexual assault and harassment complaints and sometimes they're charging people 20 years later, why can't the police do that for citizens?
You mention deeper and more serious patterns of male abuse towards women (and fighting back). Do you know if that is a factor the courts take into consideration when women are charged with assault against men? Does it get considered as self-defense or something like that in Canada or do we treat it black and white and say assault is assault? To me it would make sense that a history of abuse would justify someone reaching a breaking point and lashing out or assaulting their abuser, where they turn around and play the victim. But I'm not a law expert.
I'm going to watch that interview after breakfast thanks for digging that up.
You mention deeper and more serious patterns of male abuse towards women (and fighting back). Do you know if that is a factor the courts take into consideration when women are charged with assault against men? Does it get considered as self-defense or something like that in Canada or do we treat it black and white and say assault is assault? To me it would make sense that a history of abuse would justify someone reaching a breaking point and lashing out or assaulting their abuser, where they turn around and play the victim. But I'm not a law expert.
Manitoba introduced zero tolerance laws for domectic abuse. What often ended up happening was that the abused partner would hit back, and both partners would be charged. This was known as "double charging," and these cases were often thrown out.
Something I've been thinking about with domestic abuse is the image of a big powerful man who beats up on a woman who doesn't physically fight back. That must have been the motivation behind zero tolerance legislation. Could it be that this image plays into gender-based stereotypes that don't take into account the complexities of what happens in individual siutations? Let's say a man is viciously beating a woman and she kicks him once in the groin to get the abuse to stop. Under zero tolerance, both are charged. Using common sense, it's obvious that the man should be charged in this case.
You mention deeper and more serious patterns of male abuse towards women (and fighting back). Do you know if that is a factor the courts take into consideration when women are charged with assault against men? Does it get considered as self-defense or something like that in Canada or do we treat it black and white and say assault is assault? To me it would make sense that a history of abuse would justify someone reaching a breaking point and lashing out or assaulting their abuser, where they turn around and play the victim. But I'm not a law expert.Manitoba introduced zero tolerance laws for domectic abuse. What often ended up happening was that the abused partner would hit back, and both partners would be charged. This was known as "double charging," and these cases were often thrown out.
Something I've been thinking about with domestic abuse is the image of a big powerful man who beats up on a woman who doesn't physically fight back. That must have been the motivation behind zero tolerance legislation. Could it be that this image plays into gender-based stereotypes that don't take into account the complexities of what happens in individual siutations? Let's say a man is viciously beating a woman and she kicks him once in the groin to get the abuse to stop. Under zero tolerance, both are charged. Using common sense, it's obvious that the man should be charged in this case.
The interview explains how these prior assault charges have been bad for these women
When I was 17 in the mid-1960s, I joined the army cadets in a rifle regiment for one summer. When many cadets contined to call their rifles 'guns' repeatedly, the commanding officer ordered one cadet to climb a 25 foot scaffold in the armory and shout out:
This is my rifle
This is my gun (pointing at his penis)
This is for shooting
This is for fun.
All the cadets were embarassed and avoided using the word 'gun' afterward. However, this shows the ingrained attitude towards women present in the miltary and the linking of weapons and violence. The officer was actually a relatively mild-mannered guy, showing how deeply ingrained such attitudes can be.
Nova Scotia mass shooter may have been a police informant.
"If Wortman was an RCMP informant or agent, it could explain why the force appeared not to take action on complaints about his illegal guns and his assault on his common-law wife."
“A feminist lens will be critical to the inquiry’s success. Transition House Association of Nova Scotia, Women’s Shelters Canada, Feminists Fighting Femicide and the Canadian Women’s Foundation point out that chronic spousal abuse and misogyny are often linked to larger violent acts in our society,” the letter says.
the gender-based violence aspect of the situation seems to be generally accepted now, including among politicians and other official types.
the ns premier, mcneil, who is a bully and generally a piece of work, is of course totally dragging his feet regarding an inquiry. he comes from a sheriff-cop family. ns justice minister furey is also ex-cop, excusing off duty police bullshit when he was new glasgow's police chief with "we work hard and we party hard".
interestingly, one of the 11 questions is "the role, if any, of the COVID-19 pandemic in the incident."
i also find it interesting, or telling, that it is now accepted behavior for the media to say "22 people died", or "22 nova scotians died", ie not counting the gunman. i am all for not elevating the killer; i am also for accurate reporting. he was human, he was of us, whether we like it or not.
https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/local/nova-scotia-senators-have-q...
"Three of Nova Scotia’s newest senators are calling on the federal and provincial governments to immediately launch a joint inquiry into the mass shooting of 22 people in April.
Senators Mary Coyle, Colin Deacon and Stan Kutcher, all members of the Independent Senators Group, issued a letter to both federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey outlining the importance of a joint review.
“As independent Nova Scotia senators, we understand the need to tackle all issues surrounding this tragedy in an objective, unbiased and nonpartisan manner,” the letter states. “A joint inquiry would help everyone better understand what transpired and to learn from this tragedy. If properly conducted, the joint inquiry could lead to changes to policies, practices and procedures and hopefully give us the tools to prevent future tragedies of this nature.”
The senators go on to list 11 questions they would like to see addressed by such an inquiry."
Both the Liberal federal and Liberal Nova Scotia provincial governments are facing a backlash and accusations of a coverup over their failure to have public inquiry into the worst mass shooting in Canadian history, opting instead for a three person panel review.
The federal and provincial governments’ decision not to hold a public inquiry into the worst mass killing in Canadian history is fuelling a growing backlash in Nova Scotia and accusations of a cover-up.
Nova Scotians have been calling for an inquiry for months to examine the RCMP’s response to a 13-hour rampage that left 22 people dead in five rural communities before the shooter was killed by police in April. Instead, the federal and provincial governments announced on Thursday a three-person panel review that many say falls short of their expectations for transparency.
“It’s just inflamed their pain even further,” said Mary Coyle, who is among a group of more than 30 Canadian senators calling for a full, public inquiry into the massacre. ...
“We don’t need any more secrets around this, there’s already been enough erosion of public trust. ... This is not the best we can do. It’s pretty clear the voices of the families of those victims have not been respected.”
Some families of the victims say they reject the governments’ argument that a review – which would produce a report by the end of August, 2021, but doesn’t require public hearings – would be a faster way to get answers and spare them from the “trauma” of revisiting the massacre through an inquiry.
They believe a full, open inquiry is needed to examine why the RCMP didn’t charge the gunman in the years leading up to the shootings, despite multiple weapons and assault complaints, and to probe mistakes made in the police response to his rampage.
That includes the decision not to use the province’s emergency alert system, keeping other municipal forces in the dark after allowing the gunman to slip through a police perimeter, keeping secret for nearly 12 hours the fact the gunman was on the loose in a look-alike RCMP cruiser, a delay in calling for an aircraft in the search, and for a manhunt that only caught the killer by accident – when he stopped for gas and an officer who was also filling up recognized him.
“They won’t give us a full public inquiry, why? Because they are covering up facts that happened that night and day,” said Amelia McLeod, whose father Sean McLeod and stepmother Alanna Jenkins were killed by the gunman. “We deserve a full public inquiry. My parents deserve the truth.”
The husband of one of the victims is calling for the resignation of the province’s Attorney-General and Justice Minister, Mark Furey, who along with Bill Blair, the federal Minister of Public Safety, laid out why their governments rejected a public inquiry.
A protest is planned for Monday outside the constituency office of Mr. Furey, who is a former member of the RCMP. Some families of the victims allege he is putting the interests of the national police force over the public. ...
Opposition parties at both the federal and provincial levels also criticized the review. Nova Scotia’s NDP and Progressive Conservative parties demanded Premier Stephen McNeil call an emergency sitting of the legislature to push through a bill forcing a public inquiry.
“April 18 and 19, 2020 are among the darkest days that have been visited on our country. I am asking you to recognize and respect this fact with the commensurate response and allow for the initiation of a full-fledged, public inquiry,” reads a statement from NDP Leader Gary Burrill to the Premier. ...
Premier McNeil defended the review process and the qualifications of the panel chosen to lead it – former chief justice of Nova Scotia Michael MacDonald; former federal attorney-general Anne McLellan; and Leanne Fitch, the former chief of the Fredericton Police Force. He acknowledged that many people in his province weren’t happy, but said the review should be able to provide the answers they’re looking for.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-governments-face-backlash...
Women's Rights activists are calling for a 22 miute General Strike on Monday July 27th at noon local time across Canada over the Nova Scotia mass shooting of 22 people and the failure of the Nova Scotia Liberal and Trudeau governments over their failure to launch a public inquiry into the mass shooting and misogyny related to it.
Women’s rights advocates in Atlantic Canada are calling on people across the country to join a brief general strike on Monday to demand a public inquiry into the deadly mass shootings that took place in Nova Scotia last April. The federal and provincial governments announced this week that an expert panel, led by former Nova Scotia chief justice Michael MacDonald, would review the massacre that left 22 people dead.
But Martha Paynter, founder of Women’s Wellness Within, a Halifax-based group that advocates for women’s reproductive justice, said that falls short of the transparent public inquiry that many people, including the victims’ families, are demanding. “We need systemic and structural change to come from this, and a little review is just not going to cut it,” Paynter, one of the strike organizers, said in an interview.
The strike — which will last 22 minutes in honour of the 22 victims killed on April 18 and 19 — will begin at noon local time on Monday. Supporters of the public inquiry will be gathering at the city’s Victoria Park and people can also watch the event live on Facebook.
The victims’ families, as well as women’s rights advocates, lawyers and federal senators from across Canada, have for months urged Halifax and Ottawa to launch a public probe into what happened during the shootings and why. Many have criticized the review panel — made up of MacDonald, the former chief justice; former federal Liberal cabinet minister Anne McLellan, and Leanne Fitch, the former chief of police in Fredericton — because they say it does not have enough power and lacks transparency.
An online petition demanding a public inquiry had garnered over 10,000 signatures as of Saturday afternoon, while a Facebook group for Nova Scotians in favour of a public probe had over 9,000 members. ...
Jenny Wright, another co-organizer of Monday’s strike, said a public inquiry is the best way to get to the bottom of what happened — and prevent future massacres. “We must have an inquest that looks at the specific links between misogyny and violence against women and mass killings that we are seeing here at home and across Canada that we are not acknowledging,” Wright, a feminist activist who lives in both Halifax and St. John’s said in an interview. ,,,
She said the gunman in Nova Scotia had a history of violence against women, which can be a predictor of mass killings. She pointed to the Toronto van attack in April 2018 and to the 14 female engineering students who were killed at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique in 1989 as other examples of massacres in which misogyny played a role.
“We need to have an inquiry so that people … can be compelled to speak the truth about that night so that we’re finally able to unpack what happened (and) have transparency and accountability,” said Wright. “In the end, we are hopeful that if our voices are strong enough then the governments will overturn their decision.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/07/26/activists-to-strike-as-ca...
The strike will be in Halifax's Victoria Park and can be watched on Facebook.
Family and friends of victims attend a march demanding an inquiry into the April mass shooting in Nova Scotia that killed 22 people, in Bible Hill, N.S. on Wednesday, July 22, 2020. Women's rights advocates in Atlantic Canada are calling on people across the country to join a brief general strike on Monday to demand a public inquiry into the deadly mass shootings that took place in Nova Scotia last April. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
The federal and provincial governments announced this week that an expert panel, led by former Nova Scotia chief justice Michael MacDonald, would review the massacre that left 22 people dead.
But Martha Paynter, founder of Women's Wellness Within, a Halifax-based group that advocates for women's reproductive justice, said that falls short of the transparent public inquiry that many people, including the victims' families, are demanding.
"We need systemic and structural change to come from this, and a little review is just not going to cut it," Paynter, one of the strike organizers, said in an interview.
The strike — which will last 22 minutes in honour of the 22 victims killed on April 18 and 19 — will begin at noon local time on Monday. Supporters of the public inquiry will be gathering at the city's Victoria Park and people can also watch the event live on Facebook.
"This was a horror, an enormous trauma for the entire country, and we all should be truly enraged by the inadequate government response," Paynter said.
https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/activists-will-strike-as-calls-continue...
Below is an update of on the 22 minute general strike in Halifax over the mass shooting of 22 people.
Hundreds of people gathered at a Halifax park and in the riding of Nova Scotia's justice minister today to demand a public inquiry into the April mass shooting that killed 22 people in the province.
The protests followed last week's announcement by the provincial and federal governments of an independent review, which has been criticized by victims' family members as lacking transparency and legal heft.
Feminist community activists and advocates spoke to more than 100 people at Victoria Park in Halifax at noon, saying the panel created by the federal and provincial justice ministers is destined to work behind closed doors.
Emily Stewart, executive director of Third Place Transition House, which serves several counties where killings occurred on April 18 and 19, said only a public inquiry could effectively expose the role that domestic violence played in the mass shooting.
Meanwhile, in Bridgewater, N.S., organizer Desiree Gordon estimated about 100 people marched to the riding office of Justice Minister Mark Furey, joined by the provincial Progressive Conservative and NDP leaders.
Activists, lawyers, Nova Scotia opposition parties and senators from across Canada have joined the call for an inquiry in recent months, expressing disappointment in the governments' chosen format.
The federal and Nova Scotia governments said last week that a three-person panel would be established to review the killings and the police response.
That review body will be led by Michael MacDonald, a former chief justice of Nova Scotia, and includes former federal Liberal cabinet minister Anne McLellan, and Leanne Fitch, the former chief of police in Fredericton.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/protests-in-two-nova-scotia-locations-over-m...
After a massive backlash by the Nova Scotia public, including the 22 minute general strike described in the previous post led "on Tuesday, Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey said he would support a public inquiry into the April mass shooting if the federal government agreed." The Trudeau government then caved and announced a public inquiry. The families whose relatives have been murdered and their supporters, who had planned a march for Wednesday, say they will still be marching. Good on them for forcing a public inquiry into the many questions the murders have raised.
However, the same people who were going to carry out the review of the shootings will be carrying out the public inquiry, which could potentially raise more questions, especially with Anne McLellan being a former Liberal deputy Prime Minister.
After days of criticism about the decision to launch a review panel into the Nova Scotia mass shooting, the federal government has announced that the tragedy will instead be the subject of a public inquiry. ...
A public inquiry will allow the power to summon witnesses and require them to:
- Give evidence, orally or in writing, and on oath or, if they are persons entitled to affirm in civil matters, on solemn affirmation.
- Produce such documents and things as the commissioners deem requisite to the full investigation of the matters into which they are appointed to examine.
The same people who had been involved with the highly criticized review panel will take part in the public inquiry, Blair said.
J. Michael MacDonald, Anne McLellan and Leanne Fitch agreed to assist in the public inquiry and will serve as commissioners. ...
In an interview with CBC Nova Scotia News at Six on Tuesday, Premier Stephen McNeil apologized to the families of victims. He said his intent was not to cause families additional harm, but to get them answers with the panel review. ...
Robert Pineo, the lawyer representing 21 of the 22 families in a class-action lawsuit against the killer's estate, and whose firm is handling the class-action suit against the province and the RCMP, said he's glad the two levels of government had a change of heart. "It is unfortunate the families had to go through the turmoil of the last three days worrying about this, but at the end of the day, the government did the right thing," Pineo said. ...
Families had organized a march for Wednesday and Pineo said they still plan to do that.
"The family member that I spoke with said he would like to see the march go on as ... a show of support to the families and to the processes coming," Pineo said. "The families are going to be there tomorrow and so will some of their supporters."
Earlier on Tuesday, Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey said he would support a public inquiry into the April mass shooting if the federal government agreed.
His comments came following days of criticism about the decision to instead appoint a review panel.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/liberal-mps-support-inquiry-l...
Good to hear this reversal of decision.
The spin and ass covering will be huge as the RCMP try and explain away their many fuckups. But like High River, no one will be held accountable.
I still don't understand how anyone, even a white guy with a succesful business, could get away with a fake law enforcement uniform and fake law enforcement livery on his motor vehicle. Something is very, very wrong.
Hugs to all the people who lost loved ones and neighbours in this outrage.
You don't even need fake uniforms or a fake cop car, as Portland has shown us all it takes are a few friends with a lot of multicam gear and a white rental SUV. "Police! You're under arrest! Get in the car!"
I still don't understand how anyone, even a white guy with a succesful business, could get away with a fake law enforcement uniform and fake law enforcement livery on his motor vehicle. Something is very, very wrong.
There are lots of rumours about Wortman, including that he was an police informer, which would help explain why he got away with so much and why the Nova Scotia and Trudeau governments were reluctant to release much info about him.
Crown blocks access to case documents amid report Nova Scotia mass shooter was RCMP informant
Speculation abounds and a legal can of worms has been opened after a report published in Maclean’s claiming gunman Gabriel Wortman had criminal connections and may have been in the employ of the RCMP
Was Nova Scotia mass shooter Gabriel Wortman a police informant? Was he a member of a drug cartel? Why did he withdraw $475,000 from a Brink’s office weeks before he carried out the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history? Were there co-conspirators who helped Wortman, or is the RCMP attempting to deflect attention from its own failings in its handling of the case? And what’s the U.S. connection in the illegal guns obtained by Wortman and used in the attack? Were they part of a gun-smuggling ring?
More than two months after the former Nova Scotia denturist’s rampage that left 22 people dead and three people injured, the search for answers continues.
The scope of the investigation has been massive. Some 200 officers from six different law enforcement agencies have been assigned to the case. ...
So far, documents related to seven search warrants have been released by the courts, with some of them redacted. But an application brought by a number of media outlets led by the CBC for the complete unsealing of the remaining documents, without redactions, has opened a legal can of worms.
The federal Crown is arguing that the “premature” release of the documents could compromise the RCMP’s investigation. ...
According to the Crown, the sealed materials “contain intimate details of traumatic experiences, lives and deaths of victims and their families.” And that “no legitimate interest is served by exposing their trauma to the world.”
The Crown argues that “Public access will undermine the administration of justice and serve only to re-victimize an already vulnerable community,” and that, “preserving the integrity of the ongoing investigation outweighs the importance of public access to this information at this stage.”
https://nowtoronto.com/news/nova-scotia-mass-shooting-rcmp-gabriel-wortman
I thought the informant angle was dismissed? I'm not sure what evidence came up to result in dismissal of that theory but I guess if it was just a statement from the RCMP, then it certainly merits re-examination.
Charge against gunman’s partner attempt to divert attention from RCMP: advocacy group
The RCMP’s decision to issue a vague press release announcing charges against the partner of the Portapique Massacre, unfairly links her to one of the country’s deadliest tragedies and ignores that she’s also a victim, says an advocacy group.
“They’re letting off a smoke bomb, running away and refusing to take any responsibility for it,” said Linda MacDonald of Nova Scotia Feminists Fighting Femicide. “It’s outrageous.”
The RCMP release issued this past Friday names three people, including the common-law partner of the gunman, charged with providing the killer ammunition used in the mass killings of April 18 and 19.
-
Jeanne Sarson, a fellow member of the advocacy group, said the RCMP is attempting to deflect attention with the force under heavy media scrutiny for failing to prevent some of the deaths.
“It just seems to us that they are trying to divert attention from themselves and put it on (her),” she said.
Specifically, she said the force is seemingly dismissing its own evidence that the partner was abused by the gunman. The RCMP previously reported the gunman assaulted his common-law partner before he went on to kill 22 people.
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The CBC's Fifth Estate examined the failure of the RCMP and officials to deal with the warning signs that Wortman presented for years and their failure to deal with the shootings over two days, raising lots of questions about a coverup. Below is a detailed description with videos of what happened during those horrific thirteen hours that were described in a Fifth Estate one hour show.
The Fifth Estate explores what the RCMP knew about the gunman that night, how they remained one step behind and why the public was left in the dark.
That April night, after RCMP say he got in an argument with his partner, Wortman started a rampage, killing 22 people across Nova Scotia in Canada's largest mass shooting in modern history: 13 people in Portapique; four in Wentworth; two in Debert; three more in Shubenacadie.
And for almost 12 hours after he left the community, the people of Nova Scotia would receive little information from the RCMP about the danger that stalked rural roads; a man killing at random disguised as a Mountie.
The Fifth Estate has learned the RCMP received crucial details, including the identity of the suspect and that he was driving what appeared to be a fully marked replica police car, from the first person they encountered on the scene that night in Portapique at 10:26 p.m., nearly 12 hours before they shared it with the public — information victims' families say could have saved the lives of their loved ones. ...
he Fifth Estate has learned that by that point, at least three people had called 911, including Jamie Blair, who reported that her husband was killed by a gunman before she, too, was shot shortly after 10 p.m.
But PR said the dispatcher didn't tell him what was going on. Months later, he told the investigator that he is still frustrated that he and his wife weren't warned of the danger ahead.
"So there's 20-some minutes before we called and ... they should have told us to get the f--k out of there, but they didn't," he said in the audio obtained by The Fifth Estate. "Why didn't the dispatcher know to tell us to get out of there because people are getting shot?" ...
The Fifth Estate has learned it was at this point PR told the RCMP officer that crucial information about the suspect and his disguise.
"I told [the RCMP officer] right away it's my neighbour Gabe," PR said in the audio tape. "[I told him] he had ... an RCMP car. I knew he had those cars but I'd never seen them badged ... So that's when I first told him it was him in the car."
The constable he told this to immediately relayed the information over his police radio, PR said.
By this point, PR said, there were three officers on scene: The first to whom he told the information, the second who checked his gunshot wounds to make sure he was OK and the third, who took him and his wife to the end of the road to wait for help. ...
Audio of Nova Scotia's Emergency Health Services (EHS) dispatch that night reveals that at 10:49 p.m., they were told RCMP were "overwhelmed" and needed help.
When the specialized Emergency Response Team (ERT) eventually arrived kitted out in SWAT gear from Halifax, 130 kilometres away, they tried to clear some houses on the first road in the subdivision — pounding on doors and telling people to get out fast. They left others to sleep through the night, unaware of what was happening around them.
But it's unclear what happened on the ground when police arrived. In the seven months since the tragedy, the RCMP would not say how many officers were dispatched but insist the support was sufficient and officers followed their training. ...
The Fifth Estate has learned police didn't make it to the home of Emily, Jolene and Oliver Tuck until 19 hours after police believe they were killed in their home. Investigators would later tell family members they didn't discover the three bodies until 5 p.m. Sunday — 19 hours after police believe they were killed.
It would also take the RCMP more than two hours to rescue the four children hiding in Lisa McCully's basement. ...
The RCMP later told their families that as many as six officers were stationed around the house to protect the children. But Blair doesn't buy it.
"The RCMP have been caught in so many lies already," he told The Fifth Estate. "It's hard for me to believe a word that comes out of their mouth." ....
Around 3 a.m., an RCMP investigator called PR to go over his story again. They spoke for about an hour and PR sent the investigator a photo of Wortman he'd found on Facebook, "just to confirm," he said. PR said in total, he told the RCMP three times about Wortman and the marked car. But it wouldn't be until 12 hours after PR's first conversation that the RCMP would share that crucial information with the public.
The RCMP has repeatedly refused to speak with The Fifth Estate about the mass shootings. ...
The RCMP spent the night tracking vehicles associated with the gunman, including three decommissioned police cars. They found one white Ford Taurus burning at each of the shooter's properties in Portapique. A third would be located at his business in Dartmouth. When all three cars had been accounted for, The Fifth Estate has learned the RCMP made a fateful assumption. By dawn, they concluded the gunman must have taken his own life — not an unusual outcome after a violent rampage — and thought they'd find the evidence somewhere in the rubble of his torched properties.
An RCMP source says some officers were even sent home at that point.
And while Mounties blocked off a section of Highway 2 connected to Portapique Beach Road, there was something else they hadn't realized: Portapique had a back way out — a dirt road along a blueberry field that leads to the highway, a few hundred metres from the subdivision's main entrance. RCMP have said their investigation later determined the gunman escaped down that road about 20 minutes after police arrived — driving approximately 27 kilometres to the community of Debert. He spent the night parked behind a welding shop. ...
The RCMP have always insisted they didn't know that Wortman was using a replica police car until around 6:30 a.m. Sunday.
"Those details came in their totality to us early in the morning of Sunday, after a key witness was located and interviewed," RCMP said in a media conference on April 22. "Prior to that time, we did not have all those details. The bulk of the details about our suspect came to us at that time."
That key witness was the gunman's spouse. Police say they got in a fight and he assaulted her, which was the start of the rampage that Saturday night.
The Fifth Estate has learned the woman told investigators that Wortman restrained her with a handcuff on one of her wrists. She said she escaped from the marked police car by crawling through the window in the divider between the front and backseat, fleeing and hiding until daybreak. ...
Around 8 a.m., after police spoke with her, an updated bulletin was sent out, telling other police forces the gunman was potentially driving a "fully marked Ford Taurus," and gave the car number. It warned "he could be anywhere in the province" and "was arrestable for homicide." ...
Two hours later, around 9 a.m., the RCMP identified Wortman publicly as the suspected shooter in a tweet. But that tweet still contained no mention of a mock-RCMP car or a police uniform.
It wouldn't be until after 10 a.m. Sunday, and after the gunman killed 19 people, that police would release this information. It remains unclear why they waited. ...
Surveillance videos captured Wortman's car leaving Hunter Road at 9:23 a.m., driving faster than he had hours earlier. On the highway heading south from Wentworth, the gunman killed another stranger, Lillian Campbell, who was out walking.
By now, the information released to the public via Twitter by the RCMP was still that there was an active shooter in Portapique, and residents in that area should stay inside with their doors locked.
It was during these hours that the gunman's spouse emerged from hiding in Portapique, and the RCMP realized their suspect may not be where they thought he was. Around 9 a.m., the RCMP began to receive frantic calls from Wentworth.
When RCMP officers arrived on Hunter Road sometime after 10 a.m., the shooter was long gone — continuing his killing spree close to the warehouse where he'd spent the night. ...
"The [RCMP] had an opportunity to stop him before the people who died on the 19th were killed," said Dobson. "They failed to give the public the information they needed to stay safe."
"I've gone over and over and over again they didn't release that he was dressed as an officer," Nick Beaton said.
He is adamant if they knew that information, his wife would be by his side today.
"If the RCMP had've armed us with the information of who he was and what they knew by 11 o'clock Saturday night ... she wouldn't have even been on the road," he said. ...
In the months since the tragedy, the RCMP has offered few answers for families or the public. The force held five media conferences, the last in early June. Media organizations, including the CBC, have gone to court to try to gain access to search warrant documents.
In the early days after the shooting, RCMP said they had no files on Wortman. But police documents obtained by the CBC reveal the 51-year-old wasn't a stranger to police.
He was convicted of assaulting a teen in 2001 and investigated for threatening his parents in 2010.
The following year, Truro police received a tip that Wortman was mentally unstable, had firearms and threatened to kill a cop. In 2013, a neighbour in Portapique reported to police that Wortman was abusive towards his partner and had illegal weapons. None of these incidents resulted in charges and it's unclear to what extent police investigated.
"How in the hell is he not a red flag?" said Heather O'Brien's daughter Darcy Dobson. "It seems to me that a wealthy man with charisma got away with doing whatever the hell he wanted."
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/nova-scotia-shooting-13-deadly-...
The RCMP release issued this past Friday names three people, including the common-law partner of the gunman, charged with providing the killer ammunition used in the mass killings of April 18 and 19.
I'm not sure the specifics of the charge. I know you need to show a firearms liscence in order to buy ammunition in Canada. I didn't think it was a law so much as it's something the RCMP said "do it" and people listened.
You don't need a liscence to own ammunition or buy the components to make ammunition. Anyone on this forum could buy the parts and supplies and make your own ammo if you wanted.
It's unbelievable how much the RCMP fucked up, but it happened. We should learn from our mistakes. The RCMP is refusing to take responsibility and admit their mistakes, I can't see much learning going on.
Rolling up to a firehall and opening fire? Without positive ID?
Knowing he was in an RCMP uniform and NOT warning people? I wonder how many opened their door or window expecting to talk to the RCMP and getting shot in the face for it.
I wonder what it will take for Canadians to make changes happen.
On the bright side with all the billions of Covid dollars the Liberal Government is sliding to their friends the 2 billion dollar class action lawsuit settlement against RCMP for sexual harassment and assault doesn't seem that big of a number anymore.
In December, the shooter’s common-law spouse, Lisa Diana Banfield, 52, of Dartmouth, her brother James Blair Banfield, 64, of Beaver Bank, and her brother-in-law Brian W. Brewster, 60, of Lucasville, were accused of illegally transferring ammunition to the gunman between March 17 and April 18 of last year.
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It alleged the estate of the gunman is liable to the families of the victims who lost their lives or were injured due to his actions.
“I know this lawsuit won’t bring back any of those senselessly murdered, however, there must be accountability for this tragedy,” Beaton said at the time.
Lisa Banfield, James Banfield and Brewster are the latest to be added to the class action, which has also added Berkshire Broman Corporation, Atlantic Denture Clinic Inc. and Northumberland Investments Inc. as defendants since it was filed.
The lawsuit alleges Lisa Banfield “was aware of and facilitated (the gunman’s) preparations, including but not limited to, his accumulation of firearms, ammunition, other weapons, gasoline, police paraphernalia and the outfitting of a replica Royal Canadian Mounted Police vehicle.”
It also claims James Banfield and Brewster “directly acquired some of the ammunition used by (the gunman) in the crime spree” and “were negligent in their acquisition of these items and they knew or ought to have known that (the gunman) had tortious intentions.”
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
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I always thought it odd that the shooter's common law partner was never really treated like a victim in his criminal spree even though she had to escape and hide after being held captive. I wonder if any of the people he harmed/killed were specifically targeted - I think some knew him. But it seems once he got a taste of violence, he went on a random killing spree.
https://www.saltwire.com/halifax/news/mounties-knew-ns-mass-killers-iden...
Long before they told the public, Mounties knew the Nova Scotia mass shooter’s identity and that he was driving a fake police car, according to 911 recordings from the night the killings began.
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Just after 10 p.m. on April 18, 2020, a woman called 911 from Orchard Beach Drive in Portapique saying she believed a neighbour had just shot her husband. Both Greg and Jamie Blair, who lived at that address, were murdered that night.
“He’s lying on the deck,” she said.
The woman — who does not identify herself on the call, but is most likely Jamie Blair — told the 911 dispatcher the shooter is a denturist who drives a fake police car. She said the car was in her driveway.
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The inquiry into the mass shooting started yesterday with many people, even the Conservative Premier of Nova Scotia, Tim Houston, raising questions about how it is operating.
The problems arise questions of coverup of police and federal and provincial Liberal government failures.
The commissioners leading the inquiry into the 2020 mass shooting that claimed 22 lives in Nova Scotia began their first day of hearings on the defensive Tuesday after Premier Tim Houston accused them of disrespecting the victims' families.
About 90 minutes before the proceedings opened at the Halifax Convention Centre, Houston issued a scathing statement saying family members feel "left in the dark" about how the inquiry will work.
"This is not only disrespectful, it should cause us all to pause and ask, 'If the families don't have confidence in the process, how can the public?"' the premier said.
The inquiry has been conducting an independent investigation of the shooting rampage, which started on the night of April 18, 2020 when a gunman disguised as a Mountie killed 13 people and set fire to several homes and vehicles in rural Portapique, N.S. ...
On Tuesday, Houston called on members of the commission to meet with the victims' families and provide them with a plan that "gives them confidence" in the process. He said Nova Scotians pushed for an independent, federal-provincial inquiry as opposed to an internal review to ensure it was "honest, comprehensive, detailed and most importantly, designed to answer questions."
The premier highlighted criticism raised last week by lawyers who represent 23 individuals and families, noting the inquiry has yet to release a witness list and has been vague about whether witnesses will be subject to cross-examination.
"This uncertainty is causing further, unnecessary trauma," he said.
Federal Immigration Minister and Nova Scotia MP Sean Fraser echoed Houston's sentiments in a statement Tuesday, saying he has heard from victims' families who don't have faith in the inquiry. He said they've expressed "a general sense that the flow of information is being controlled in an effort to protect them, when what they want more than anything is the truth, no matter how difficult."
The chairman of the commission of inquiry, former Nova Scotia chief justice Michael MacDonald, addressed some of the politicians' concerns in his opening remarks, saying cross-examination will be part of the inquiry.
"If there is a witness who can provide more information, we will bring them here and ask them questions," MacDonald said. "And we will enable legal counsel representing the participants to put forward questions and witness recommendations as well."
MacDonald, however, said some witnesses have been left hurting and "even broken" by the killer's rampage almost two years ago. "If we can get at the truth in ways that do not cause more hurt, then we have a responsibility to do so," he said. ...
Houston told reporters he issued his statement as "a bit of an exclamation point" because he was growing anxious about how the inquiry would be conducted. ...
Nick Beaton, the husband of shooting victim Kristen Beaton, has said he and other relatives of victims are seeking a list of witnesses who will testify and a commitment from the commission that RCMP witnesses will face cross-examination. In addition, he said in a recent Facebook post that the families are seeking confirmation that Lisa Banfield, the killer's spouse, will be called as a witness.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/left-in-the-dark-nova-scotia-premier-frustra...
The spouse of the gunman won't cooperate with the inquiry because she is facing criminal charges of supplying ammunition to the killer. James Lockyer, a Toronto defence lawyer representing Lisa Banfield, told The Canadian Press on Tuesday his client, said 'we would have been in the commission's office within 20 seconds of being asked,' were it not for the criminal charge. 'It's the criminal charges and nothing else,' he said." Is this an attack on the abused and an attempt to keep her quiet?
The spouse of the gunman in the Nova Scotia mass shooting won't be co-operating with a public inquiry as long as she's facing criminal charges for allegedly transferring ammunition to the shooter.
James Lockyer, a Toronto defence lawyer representing Lisa Banfield, said in an interview that he's advised his client not to talk to the inquiry, which is attempting to unravel what occurred during her common-law partner's April 18-19, 2020 rampage.
The killer took the lives of 22 people, including a pregnant woman, over 13 hours while driving a replica of an RCMP vehicle and dressed in a police uniform. He was shot dead by police at a gas station north of Halifax.
The RCMP have said from the outset that Banfield wasn't aware of her spouse's intentions, but they proceeded with charges alleging she, her brother and her brother-in-law had illegally transferred ammunition to the gunman, Gabriel Wortman.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/gunman-s-spouse-staying-out-of-n-s-mass-shoo...
Former Nova Scotia chief justice Michael MacDonald, who leads the inquiry, even admits "concerns that the commission may be 'susceptible to covering up'for either the RCMP or government". A lawyer for some of the victim's families called the judge's comments "defensive" and "our clients to view the remarks of the commissioners without a degree of skepticism.” Furthemore, "Commissioner Leanne Fitch, a former Fredericton police chief, said while the commission “may” allow lawyers for participants to question witnesses, it is crucial the commissioners themselves retain control of the process" makes it sound like the commission doesn't want any questions that troubles its own viewpoint.
Public hearings into the April 2020 Nova Scotia shooting spree that left 22 people dead got off to a “somewhat defensive” start Tuesday in Halifax.
Former Nova Scotia chief justice Michael MacDonald, who leads the inquiry, spent much of his opening remarks responding to concerns raised by victims’ families who say they’ve been “left in the dark” and that the commission lacks transparency.
“Confidence in our institutions around us has been shaken,” MacDonald said. “We have heard throughout our work concerns about trust – trust in people, community and institutions, and in this commission. Let me allay your concerns.”
MacDonald went on to address general concerns that the commission may be “susceptible to covering up” for either the RCMP or government and their perceived failings with respect to how they responded to the shooting spree. "I would never tolerate any attempt by any institution or by any individual to tamper with our independence,” he said. “I am absolutely committed to the independence of this commission, its findings and its recommendations.” ...
MacDonald’s remarks followed a scathing statement released Tuesday morning by Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston that echoed many of the concerns raised by victims’ families so far.
Houston said he had real concerns with the commission’s process and wanted to make sure victims’ families and their lawyers would be allowed to participate in the hearings in a meaningful way. ...
Sandra McCulloch, one of the lawyers who represents the victims’ families at the commission, said she felt like MacDonald’s opening remarks were responsive to their concerns, but added that they still lacked clarity and offered no real specifics about how the proceedings will work going forward and what level of participation families will be allowed.
She also said MacDonald’s tone seemed “somewhat defensive” following weeks of public and private criticism of the commission’s work.
“It will be difficult for our clients to view the remarks of the commissioners without a degree of skepticism,” McCulloch said. “It’s fair to say that much of what we heard from the commissioners today is fairly consistent with what we’ve heard before.” ...
Sandra McCulloch, one of the lawyers who represents the victims’ families at the commission, said she felt like MacDonald’s opening remarks were responsive to their concerns, but added that they still lacked clarity and offered no real specifics about how the proceedings will work going forward and what level of participation families will be allowed.
She also said MacDonald’s tone seemed “somewhat defensive” following weeks of public and private criticism of the commission’s work.
“It will be difficult for our clients to view the remarks of the commissioners without a degree of skepticism,” McCulloch said. “It’s fair to say that much of what we heard from the commissioners today is fairly consistent with what we’ve heard before.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/8636663/ns-shooting-inquiry-day-1/
The concerns that Nova Scotia mass murder comission was covering up for the RCMP mentioned in the last post have grown following the start of the inquiry.
Thursday was the first time Nick Beaton came to the public proceedings held in Halifax by the Mass Casualty Commission, and he says he was only faced with disappointment. ...'
“The information he was told at the scene, is that a young female left with chest injuries,” says Beaton. “Kristen’s brother called me right then and said, 'Kristen might still be alive,' ... it gave us hope.”
Beaton says Kristen’s brother even went to the hospital to look for her.
The family’s hope vanished when RCMP notified them of Kristen's homicide eight hours after she was killed. ...
Beaton and his wife had been communicating back-and-forth in text messages and phone calls about the situation, which they knew from social media had unfolded in Portapique, N.S., the night before.
Beaton told his wife in a text, “If you see someone walking, don’t stop.” At 9:37 a.m., Beaton sent his wife a photo of the suspect sent out by police.
But while the RCMP knew internally to be on the lookout for the suspect in a mock police car, the force didn't alert the public to that fact until a tweet at 10:17 a.m.
“If we had known, she would have been home, there's no question. I believe that with every inch of my soul that she would have been home if she had of known,” says Beaton.
That was the day the commission outlined its findings of fact so far regarding what led up to the killing of Beaton's pregnant wife, Kristen Beaton, by the gunman responsible for Nova Scotia’s April 2020 mass shooting.
"I don't feel they're digging into it enough, I really don't," says Beaton.
Beaton says too many details were left out in the inquiry’s presentation on the events, like what Kristen’s brother was told by police after he rushed to the crime scene in search his sister.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/i-don-t-feel-they-re-digging-into-it-enough-...
The RCMP police union tried to block the questioning of its members over why warnings to the public did not occur earlier.
Wortman’s 13-hour rampage on 18-19 April 2020 ended when he was shot dead by police. But questions over the emergency response have persisted – not least why the RCMP leadership failed to issue an emergency alert, warning residents of the gunman.
The union representing the officers initially said testifying would re-traumatize them, but police agreed to answer questions from the commission after mounting public pressure for answers into the early hours of the response.
The three officers said they initially assumed the shooter was driving a decommissioned vehicle, possible with old decals, after receiving reports that a “police car” was spotted in the area.
Instead, they soon realized he was in a near-perfect replica of their own vehicles, equipped with emergency lights.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/29/canada-mass-shooting-polic...
While one police officer claimed Heather O'Brien was still alive and called for an ambulance, a second officer checked her pulse and said she was dead and stopped the ambulance call. However, her Fitbit device recorded a weak pulse for her for another eight hours. The family claims the public is not being told about this information and that it is being buried in thousands of pages of documents. Do you smell coverup?
O’Brien’s family released a statement Thursday night after the Mass Casualty Commission presented its findings on what happened when Kristen Beaton and Heather O’Brien were shot and killed just before 10 a.m. on April 19 on Plains Road in Debert, N.S.
The presentation prompted O'Brien’s family to share what they believe wasn't shared — that the VON’s Fitbit registered a pulse for hours after police radioed she had died.
Documents released by the commission reveal one of the initial responding police officers said O’Brien had a faint pulse when they arrived, but that life flight and EHS did not attend due to the active shooter situation. He then said they “had to let her die.”
However, another officer told the commission an initial pulse reading was inaccurate and upon re-checking, he confirmed she was deceased.
The O’Brien family takes issue with those statements and said O’Brien’s Fitbit device registered a pulse until 6 p.m. on April 19.
“We know this information is controversial. We also know that it has been used in cases in the U.S. to pinpoint time of death,” the statement read.
“Once again, we are disappointed that the public is not getting this information, and instead being forced to read through thousands of documents to find anything. If it does not fit their narrative, it is not published.”
The Fitbit data was acknowledged in the documents, noting the commission is investigating whether readings on O’Brien’s Fitbit can shed light on events.
“Anybody reading the foundational document at the time would’ve been, yes, aware that Fitbit data would’ve been presented but they would’ve had no conception whatsoever of what that data may have meant or why the family submitted it in the first place,” said Adam Rodgers, a criminal lawyer. …
Brian Sauvé, the president of the National Police Federation, is calling for the commission to question the medical examiner on the Fitbit activity. “The allegations of neglect of duties being asserted by the O’Brien family and repeated in the media against our EMRT members are extremely serious, striking at the core of their commitment to serve and protect, and dishonouring their service on April 18 and 19.”
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/family-of-n-s-shooting-victim-accuses-commis...
At least 44 people had close calls with the mass murderer, in part as a result of the failure of the police to send out a warning for 13 hours of a mass murderer on the loose.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/at-least-44-people-had-close-...
The Nova Scotia mass murder comission was only grudgingly granted and now is being criticized for and "here is no assurance that it will be anything other than the review that our clients marched to oppose in the summer of 2020 ... Commission counsel Roger Burrill explained that he glossed over the Fitbit detail because he thought people might find it “disturbing.” .
The judicial inquiry into deranged denturist Gabriel Wortman’s murder of 22 Nova Scotians in April 2020 is turning into a hot mess.
In the aftermath of Wortman’s murderous rampage, neither the federal nor provincial governments were keen to establish a full-bore judicial inquiry — especially not one that could subject the RCMP to the searching scrutiny afforded by sworn testimony and aggressive cross-examination. The feds wanted to avoid a public spectacle that might pressure them to carry out top-to-bottom reform of Canada’s dysfunctional national police force. Then-Premier Stephen McNeil came from a family steeped in police work. His mother was high sheriff of Annapolis County, and five of his siblings serve as police officers. His minister of justice was a retired RCMP officer. ...
A furious outcry from families of the victims and members of the public forced them to reconsider. In July 2020, the then-federal public safety minister, Bill Blair, announced a public inquiry with power to compel witnesses and permit cross-examination....
In recent weeks, a rising tide of criticism has engulfed the commission’s work. Premier Tim Houston complained about repeated delays in getting hearings underway, and the commission’s unresponsive treatment of victims’ family members. A white-shoe Halifax law firm, Patterson Law, took the unusual step of issuing a public rebuke of the commission over its vague and unconventional procedures. ...
“Our clients continue to watch for signs that the public inquiry will proceed as it should, but feel greatly disappointed that, a week before commencement, there is no assurance that it will be anything other than the review that our clients marched to oppose in the summer of 2020,” wrote lawyers Sandra McCulloch and Robert Pineo. ...
This week, Gavin Giles, a partner at McInnes Cooper, one of Atlantic Canada’s largest law firms, wrote a blistering letter to the Halifax Chronicle Herald, denouncing the commission’s procedures. “True inquiries focus on the who, what, when, where, why and how,” he wrote. “True inquiries understand intuitively that the search for the truth, all of the truth, is oftentimes raw and uncomfortable. True inquiries seek out information by exposing witnesses to direct and frequently aggressive forms of questioning. We are not seeing any of that in the commission’s work to date.”...
At the heart of the problem seems to be the commission’s mandate that its work be “trauma-informed.” That’s a useful concept when it guides police interviews with sexual assault complainants. It’s foolhardy when applied to a factual inquiry into a mass murder covering 22 killings at 16 locations over 13 hours.
The family of murder victim Heather O’Brien responded with fury when the commission’s summary of evidence elided one particularly unpleasant fact: Data from O’Brien’s Fitbit showed that her heart continued to beat many hours after RCMP Const. Ian Fahie, who attended the aftermath of her shooting, had wrongly concluded that she was dead — and shooed away paramedics because an active shooter incident was underway. ...
“Const. Fahie is the lower ranking officer in this situation,” wrote Darcey Dobson, O’Brien’s daughter, on Facebook. “He has nothing to gain by lying. More likely he has a lot to lose for telling the truth.”
Commission counsel Roger Burrill explained that he glossed over the Fitbit detail because he thought people might find it “disturbing.”...
Consistent with this approach, the commission refuses to mention Gabriel Wortman’s name in its documents and its own statements at public hearings. It’s as if his name has magical powers, and by its erasure, everything will be better.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/parker-donham-the-hot-mess-that-is-...
Testimony at the mass murder commission that a police officer had not felt a pulse in a wounded woman, Heather O'Brien, was contradicted by his own police report that said she had a weak pulse and was making noises when he checked her. Another officer called off the ambulance. They even turned O'Brien's daughter away when she attempted to reach her mother to say goodbye, allegedly because of risk from the shooter.
Const. Ian Fahie was one of the first to see O’Brien after the shooting, and would tell the commission that she was not showing a pulse and her fingers were “cold.” Another attending officer, Devonna Coleman, would say the same thing. However, both of these were contradicted by Fahie’s police report from that day which said that O’Brien had been registering a “weak pulse” and had been making “slight noises.” ...
Ambulances weren’t being allowed into the area in case Wortman were to return. Fahie himself would turn O’Brien’s daughter Michaella Scott away when she attempted to reach the Jetta. “You need to go. It’s not safe for you to be here,” he told her. Scott’s own testimony to the commission would say “they took away my right to hold my mother’s hand, to say goodbye.”
In a Facebook post earlier this month, O’Brien’s family posted data from her Fitbit showing that she was registering a heartbeat as late as 6 p.m. — nearly eight hours after her daughter had tried to reach the scene.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/police-almost-shot-the-wrong-man-de...
Despite one police officer saying to another "That's him", the driving officer kept going worried about his own life and said he didn't have room to turn around and chase the killer. I find the inability to turn around and give chase extremely hard to believe.
In the seconds after a Mountie sped past a gunman wanted for a murderous rampage in Nova Scotia two years ago, the officer hesitated about whether to give chase, and by the time he did the suspect was gone.
Public inquiry documents released Thursday describe in detail for the first time an encounter between Cpl. Rodney Peterson and the killer on April 19, 2020. The two men _ one a real Mountie and the other an impostor in a police uniform driving a replica RCMP vehicle _ passed in opposite directions just before 9:48 a.m. on Highway 4 hear the community of Glenholme.
Peterson radioed to other RCMP members that the driver was wearing a reflective vest and “smiled as he went by,” prompting another officer to say, “That’s him. That’s got to be him.”
The corporal had come on shift that morning with instructions to look for the killer’s fake patrol car and to wear his body armour. ...
Moments after the killer went by him, fleeing the scene, Peterson struggled to determine his next move.
“I’m trying to decide, should I stop, slow down, talk to this person, or keep going?” Peterson would recall in an interview with lawyers representing the commission of inquiry. So, I said, ‘If I stop and this is the bad guy, I’m going to get shot here, I’m going to get killed. If I continue on, that will give me a chance to turn around and pursue him, or to do something,”’ he told the interviewer.
However, in the seconds that followed, the officer found the road too narrow for a quick U-turn. He said he was worried that if he was too long in making the turn, the killer might return to shoot him.
According to the commission’s summary, Peterson turned around to give chase about 1.2 kilometres past where he and the gunman had crossed paths.
“At this point, I’m thinking, I’m going to get shot if I don’t do this correctly,” the officer said in the interview with the commission, explaining his decision to delay the turn.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8724338/mass-shooting-inquiry-commission/
Questions continue to arise about the terrrible communication of the RCMP with the public during and after the mass murder with no warning going out of the danger to the public despite two RCMP officers asking that it be done.
Two years after her father was gunned down by a man disguised as a Mountie, Charlene Bagley remains convinced he would be alive today had the Nova Scotia RCMP issued a provincewide alert early in the killer's rampage. "He usually would check the news on Facebook," Bagley said in a recent interview, recalling the morning of April 19, 2020 when her father Tom was murdered. ...
The RCMP's communication with the public during the gunman's 13 hours at large has become a focal point for the commission of inquiry investigating the worst mass shooting in modern Canadian history, which claimed 22 lives on April 18-19, 2020.
After almost eight weeks of public hearings, key questions remain about how and when the Mounties shared information, including on the first night when the killer fatally shot 13 people in rural Portapique, N.S., about 50 kilometres south of the Bagley home.
The inquiry has heard that on April 18, 2020, at 11:32 p.m. RCMP used Twitter to advise Portapique residents to lock their doors because police were investigating a "firearms complaint."
That innocuous statement offered little hint of the unfolding tragedy. By that time, the Mounties at the scene were aware an active shooter had already killed at least two people, wounded another and had set fire to a number of homes.
As well, the suspect had yet to be found, officers were reporting gunfire and explosions, and a series of 911 calls indicated the killer was driving a car that looked like a fully marked RCMP cruiser.
The inquiry has heard that at least two Mounties, Const. Stuart Beselt and Staff Sgt. Al Carroll, had suggested the public should be alerted to what was going on. But that didn't happen until the next morning.
Beselt, the first officer to arrive at Portapique at 9:25 p.m., delivered the following message on his police radio at 11:16 p.m. as the search continued for the killer: "Is there some kind of emergency broadcast that we can make (to) make people go into their basement and not go outside?"
He was told residents in the area were being called directly. No broadcast was made.
As for Carroll, district commander for Colchester County, he told the inquiry's investigators that some time before midnight, he advised his colleagues to "get something out there through our media communications out of H Division (headquarters)." ...
"They're our media people," he recalled saying. "Get in touch with them so they can get something out by their normal channels," which included social media. But the RCMP did not send any other messages to the public that night.
Michael Arntfield, a professor and criminologist at Western University in London, Ont., said decision-making within the RCMP can be a slow process, especially when it comes to dealing with the public.
"There are obviously going to be tactical decisions made on the fly but everything needs to be run up the flagpole and then back down if it involves any public communications," he said. ...
At 8:02 a.m., almost 10 hours after the shooter killed his first victim, the Mounties issued a tweet declaring an "active shooter situation" in Portapique, the first time the public received such a warning. But it did not mention the suspected getaway car or that the perpetrator could be anywhere in the province.
The RCMP followed up with another tweet at 8:54 a.m. that identified 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman as the suspected gunman. A photo of him accompanied the tweet.
It was around that time that Tom Bagley left for his morning walk on Hunter Road in West Wentworth. Investigators believe the former firefighter was fatally shot by the perpetrator as he approached the burning home of neighbours Sean McLeod and Alanna Jenkins. Police believe McLeod and Jenkins were killed in their house some time between 6:35 a.m. and 9 a.m. Charlene Bagley said her father would have stayed home had a provincewide warning alerted him to an active shooter in the area. ...
It wasn't until 10:17 a.m. that the RCMP sent a tweet showing a photo of the killer's car, saying the perpetrator may be wearing an RCMP uniform. That key warning came almost 12 hours after the Mounties were first told about the vehicle, and more than two hours after they received the photo.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/two-years-after-a-gunman-killed-22-in-nova-s...
Public trust in police, already low for many people, has obviously decreased because of the police handling of the mass shooting and the subsequent lack of communication with the public. An interim report from the commission is expected to go to the federal and provincial governments by Sunday.
Public trust in law enforcement agencies is undermined every time someone is caught impersonating a police officer, the inquiry investigating the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia was told Wednesday.
The inquiry has heard the gunman was disguised as a Mountie and driving a car that looked exactly like an RCMP cruiser when he started killing people in rural Portapique, N.S., on April 18, 2020.
In all, he fatally shot 22 people before he was killed by two RCMP officers the next day.
A five-member panel, which included former police officers and academics, was asked Wednesday what could be done to regain public trust when such a tragedy happens.
One former police officer said the public should start asking questions whenever approached by someone who claims to be an officer.
“We are lucky as a society that we basically trust our police,”
said Julia Cecchetto, the former chief of the Kentville Municipal Police Service and former chairwoman of the Nova Scotia Chiefs of Police Association. “But I think the public needs to start questioning, challenging …. It’s OK to confront. Any police officer is going to understand that.”
Ian Loader, a professor of criminology at the University of Oxford in England, said trust in the police remains high, but he said that has little to do with how police actually behave.
“One of the big, unexplained questions in police sociology, given all the scandals and misconduct … that we’ve witnessed in the last three decades, is why public support for the police remains so high,” Loader said.
A large portion of the population automatically assumes the police are always a force for good, he said.
“If they contemplate what it would feel like to live in a society where they can’t trust the police, they find that too troubling and they suppress that thought,” Loader said. As a result, the idea that people should routinely question and challenge police is probably asking too much, he said.
“I’m not sure that’s where we want to end up,” Loader said.
“But there may be a lot to be said for inculcating a much more nuanced and skeptical view of policing as an institution …. An uncritical identification with the police in a democracy is a dangerous sentiment.”
Meaghan Daniel, a Montreal lawyer and academic who focuses on social justice and state violence, said it’s important to recognize there’s another segment of the population that has good reason for not trusting the police. For marginalized Canadians, the RCMP and police in general are not to be trusted, she said. Among Indigenous people, Daniel said, the Mounties are associated with genocide and other atrocities. One of the roles of the RCMP was asserting sovereignty over Indigenous people and their lands, and to act as truant officers for children fleeing residential schools, she added.
“For Indigenous people in Canada, RCMP and other police are not symbols of comfort, as they might be for white, upper-middle-class families,” Daniel said. “For Indigenous people, it’s a symbol of … over-incarceration or a foreign and imposed justice system …. I don’t want to sound like I’m overstating, but I feel like these symbols are in fact terrorizing to some, as much as they are celebrated by others.”
The inquiry entered a new phase of its mandate on Wednesday by shifting its focus to learning the how and the why of what happened two years ago, though its initial fact-finding effort is ongoing.
The federal-provincial commission, which started hearings in February, is expected to submit an interim report to the two levels of government by this Sunday.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8790089/ns-mass-casualty-commission-april-27/
Interim report into N.S. shooting inquiry notes lack of grief, trauma supports
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/interim-report-into-n-s-shoot...
Nova Scotia shooter's illegal arsenal outlined at Mass Casualty Commission
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/nova-scotia-shooter-s-illegal-arsenal-outlin...
Nova Scotia’s mass shooting inquiry will soon focus on killer’s violent past: report
https://globalnews.ca/news/8803652/ns-shooting-inquiry-interim-report/
RCMP officers who shot at Nova Scotia firehall during mass shooting stand by actions (sounds just like so many other cops)
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/rcmp-officers-who-shot-at-nova-scotia-fireha...
More problems with the RCMP response to the mass murder.
When a man disguised as a Mountie started killing people in northern Nova Scotia two years ago, there was considerable confusion over who was in charge of the RCMP operation, newly released documents show.
The public inquiry investigating the tragedy has also heard, in testimony on Monday, about the “chaos in communications” that ensued on April 18-19, 2020, when 22 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in modern Canadian history.
In a summary of evidence about the RCMP's command decisions, released Tuesday, the inquiry was reminded that the first indication of trouble came at 10:01 p.m., on April 18, 2020. That's when Jamie Blair, a resident of rural Portapique, N.S., called 911 to report that her husband had just been shot by a man with “a big gun.”
As the gunman broke into her home, Blair reported just before she was shot dead that the attacker had a “decked and labelled” police car but was not a police officer.
At the time, Staff Sgt. Brian Rehill was the RCMP's risk manager at its Operational Communications Centre in nearby Truro, N.S. Following RCMP protocol, he immediately assumed command.
Within the next 30 minutes, as reports came in about more fatal shootings, Rehill engaged the RCMP's critical incident command structure and he reached out for help from four other staff sergeants: Steve Halliday, Addie MacCallum, Al Carroll and Jeff West.
The 130-page document includes excerpts of an interview with Halliday, who made it clear that he believed he was in charge of the “overall operation” when he arrived at the RCMP detachment in Bible Hill, N.S., at about 11:30 p.m.
But Halliday, the district's operations officer, told an inquiry investigator that he decided to leave Rehill in control of resources as “ad hoc incident commander.”
In an interview with the commission last year, Rehill said it was his understanding that he would be the “initial critical incident commander” until West, a trained critical incident commander, arrived.
As well, there was another RCMP officer providing direction that night: Sgt. Andy O'Brien, the Bible Hill detachment's operations non-commissioned officer. Though he was off duty and had consumed four alcoholic drinks, O'Brien later retrieved his portable radio from the detachment - with the help of his wife - and joined in offering direction to investigating officers.
The question of who was in charge in those crucial early hours was addressed in an earlier occupational health and safety report, which found the RCMP had breached the federal Labour Code by failing to ensure employees had necessary supervision.
The RCMP also failed to deal with the mental health issues of their officers who had to deal with the deadly carnage of the mass murder, with officers still off work today as a result of the lack of mental health support.
The RCMP's treatment of their tactical team in the days following the April 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia was characterized as "absolutely disgusting" Monday during testimony before the public inquiry examining the killings.
Retired corporal Tim Mills, who headed the 13-member Emergency Response Team, told the inquiry that a lack of mental health support in the week after the rampage that claimed 22 lives is the main reason he left the force after a 29-year career.
"The RCMP as an organization wants to give this impression that they care about their members," Mills testified. "The way that we were treated after this (Portapique) was disgusting, absolutely disgusting."
Mills detailed his attempts to get more time for his eight part-time team members to "decompress" after the April 18-19, 2020, rampage instead of quickly returning to general duties at their detachments after the unit was stood down for three days.
He said it was agreed during a debriefing involving team members and three psychiatrists on April 24 that a request would be made for the part-timers to work at headquarters with the full-time team members for a period of two weeks.
"Their advice was to be around like-minded people, talk openly about it, stay busy," Mills said.
But, he said the request appeared to go nowhere, and by April 29 he was told the part-time team members had to return to their home units.
"There are members off because of Portapique that are still off today, that didn't see what we saw. They forced our guys back to work a week and a half after."
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/document-details-rcmp-tactical-team-s-initia...
Two senior RCMP officers, unlike the rank and file RCMP, have been exempted from cross-examination in their testimony making families of the deceased and Nova Scotians angry. Can you say whitewash?
Two lawyers are criticizing a decision Tuesday to allow senior RCMP witnesses to avoid cross-examination before the inquiry investigating the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia.
The lawyers, Tara Miller and Josh Bryson, represent relatives of some of the victims gunned down by a killer disguised as a Mountie and driving a replica RCMP cruiser on April 18-19, 2020.
The federal-provincial commission of inquiry has agreed to provide special accommodations for three senior Mounties when they testify about command decisions they made as the tragedy unfolded.
Two of the Mounties, Staff Sgt. Brian Rehill and Sgt. Andy O'Brien, will face questions from commission counsel via Zoom calls that will be recorded and broadcast at a later date. Participants and lawyers who wish to observe their testimony must remain off screen with their microphones muted while each Mountie is speaking.
No reasons were given for the special arrangements as this information is considered private information that typically deals with physical or psychological health needs, the commission said.
Miller said she disagrees with the decision not to allow direct cross-examination.
"It will erode trust in this process and the evidence that will come out of it for these key witnesses," said Miller, who represents a relative of Kristen Beaton, a nurse and pregnant mother who was fatally shot while sitting in her car in Debert, N.S., on April 19, 2020.
Last week, the Nova Scotia RCMP issued a statement saying the inquiry would be violating its own rules if Mounties who endured trauma were called to testify without some form of accommodation. The inquiry's mandate calls for it to adopt a trauma-informed approach.
Bryson said he could have cross-examined Rehill and O'Brien without causing trauma. "I'm very disappointed in the ruling by the commissioners to be removing our meaningful participation in the evidence of these two key participants in this inquiry," he said. ...
Rehill was the RCMP's risk manager at its Operational Communications Centre in nearby Truro, N.S. When the centre received 911 calls confirming an active shooter was on the loose, Rehill immediately assumed command.
"He (Rehill) made the key decisions," Bryson said in an interview Tuesday, adding that the senior Mountie should face questions about what he did to contain the killer on the first night.
As well, Bryson said Rehill should be asked about why there was confusion over who was in charge, given the fact that O'Brien and another Mountie -- Staff Sgt. Al Carroll -- were also issuing orders over the police radio that night. Though he was off duty and had consumed four alcoholic drinks, O'Brien retrieved his portable radio from the detachment -- with the help of his wife -- and joined in offering direction to responding officers.
According to the commission, participating lawyers such as Bryson and Miller will be asked to provide questions for Rehill and O'Brien by Thursday at 4 p.m. The commission's lawyers will then plan their questioning, which is expected to take place on Monday and Tuesday, beginning with Rehill.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/mass-shooting-inquiry-two-senior-mounties-ex...
As a result of allowing two senior RCMP officers who ran the response to the mass shooting being allowed not have to face cross-examination, the families of the deceased are boycotting the inquiry and calling it "bullshit". It smacks of coverup.
There were plenty of empty seats at the Mass Casualty Commission's first day in Truro, N.S., Wednesday -- seats that would normally be filled.
It was the result of a boycott of the inquiry by many of those whose loved ones were killed in Nova Scotia's mass shooting in April 2020.
“It's total bullshit. I'll call it what it is,” said Nick Beaton, whose pregnant wife Kristen was killed on the second day of Gabriel Wortman’s massacre.
He joined his lawyers for a news conference in downtown Truro Wednesday to say the commission is failing.
“When these three (commissioners) got hired on, they have the power to subpoena and ask any question in the world, to anybody, and they're not using it," he said. “And they're scrubbing, they're scrubbing the words before they come out.”
The boycott comes after the commissioners' decision Tuesday to allow two senior RCMP decision-makers to testify in a recorded video interview, answering direct questions from commission counsel only.
Any other questions from other lawyers must be submitted in writing, to be asked at counsel's discretion.
"Two of the most critical RCMP members who assisted with the response in Portapique are being kept away from our clients,” says lawyer Sandra McCulloch. “That's not acceptable to our clients.”
“Our clients don't want to be used as pawns,” adds lawyer Rob Pineo. “Lending legitimacy to the process as if we're in agreement with how this commission is being run in that regard.”
Other lawyers are also boycotting proceedings.
Tara Miller, who represents another relative of Kristen Beaton, told CTV News she will not attend this week or the next. The lawyer for the Bond family, Joshua Bryson, won’t be attending next week on the instruction of his clients.
"We feel like, if we're going to be marginalized to this extent, there's really not much point in us being here to participate in these two witnesses,” says Bryson.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/that-s-not-acceptable-families-of-n-s-shooti...
The first RCMP officer to oversee the response testfied yesterday, describing the miscues that occurred during the process, but since no cross-examination by family lawyers was allowed, the credibility of the commissioned is deeply damaged. "The backlash is believed to be unprecedented for a public inquiry on this scale."
The Mountie in charge of the RCMP's initial response to the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia began testifying before an inquiry Monday, but the public has been barred from listening.
For unspecified health reasons, Staff Sgt. Brian Rehill was granted permission to testify via a Zoom call, which is being recorded and will be released later.
Rehill has also been exempted from facing cross-examination by lawyers representing relatives of the 22 people killed on April 18-19, 2020. That decision last week prompted most of the families to boycott the proceedings,and some staged a protest outside the hearings in Truro, N.S.
The backlash is believed to be unprecedented for a public inquiry on this scale.
"I have never encountered a situation like this where the commissioners of a public inquiry appear to have lost the confidence and trust of key parties and potentially the general public," said Ed Ratushny, professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa and author of the 2009 book, "The Conduct of Public Inquiries."
"My opinion is that this commission must have lost sight of the fundamental, crucial role of a public inquiry. Instead of a full public process of fact-finding, it has ... limited opportunities to challenge its investigation."
As well, Ratushny said the commission of inquiry should adhere to the legal principle of "fairness," which states that administrative tribunals must allow participants to "test the evidence ... through vigorous questioning."
A second senior Mountie, Sgt. Andy O'Brien, has been granted the same accommodations as Rehill. O'Brien is expected to testify behind closed doors on Tuesday.
In a statement Friday, the commission defended its approach. "Given the health information provided, allowing the witnesses to provide evidence this way will reduce the stress and time pressure that arises from giving oral evidence in live proceedings," it said. "This format will facilitate the testimony and therefore provide clear evidence."
Participating lawyers, including those representing victims' families, were asked to provide questions for Rehill and O'Brien, but it will be up to the commission to decide what questions are put to the witnesses. Once the first round of questioning is done, participating lawyers will be asked if they have more questions.
The commission has said the reasons behind the special arrangements must remain confidential because its decision is based on private personal information, such as physical or psychological health needs.
In an earlier interview with commission lawyers, Rehill confirmed he had been off work for 16 months after the tragedy, saying he struggled with questions about the decisions he made.
For some of the victims' relatives, the commission should never have offered the two Mounties an exemption from cross-examination.
"If the officers who were in charge ... can't get on the stand and defend the decisions that they made, then there's something wrong with this whole process," Charlene Bagley said Thursday during the Truro protest. Her father, Tom, was fatally shot by the gunman early on April 19, 2020, as he was out for a walk in West Wentworth, N.S.
Bagley said cross-examination is a must. "It's easy to sit there and tell the story you've been told to tell," she said. "It's a lot harder to face hard questions. The truth hurts, but we need it."
Nova Scotia lawyer Adam Rodgers, who has been analyzing the inquiry's progress on his blog, said that kind of anger is justified.
"Participants have been marginalized throughout the ... proceedings, and the inability to effectively cross-examine witnesses is central to that marginalization," Rodgers said in an email.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/lost-confidence-nova-scotia-mass-shooting-in...
The trauma from the mass shooting on 911 staff has resulted in them still being half staffed due to PTSD and many quitting while recruitment remains difficult following the killing of 22 people in the mass shooting. In general not enough is being done to help first responders deal with the after-effects of catastrophic events.
Supervisors for the 911 operations centre involved in the Nova Scotia mass shooting of April 2020 say major changes have better prepared them for a similar crisis, but the trauma of the event has cut their workforce in half and left them struggling.
Bryan Green and Kirsten Baglee, who were supervisors in the operational communications centre (OCC) in Bible Hill at the time of the massacre, spoke before the Mass Casualty Commission leading an inquiry into the tragedy on Monday.
Green said there were 50 full-time operators at the time of the April 18-19, 2020, killings, and they only have 24 now. People who are off on long-term sick leave are still holding some positions, Green said, but may or may not come back.
"The magnitude of it was more than any one of us could have imagined," Baglee said.
"We lost great operators, great employees, great people, that I wouldn't have thought we were going to lose," Green added.
Green said the centre is still feeling the ripple effects of the event since they lost some employees as recently as this April, who had held on "as long as they could."
The centre is trying to restaff "but it's hard to keep up, so we're struggling," Green said.
The inquiry has heard the OCC is where 911 call-takers and dispatchers for RCMP work, and where the RCMP risk manager is stationed. At the time of the mass shooting the centre was in Bible Hill, but moved to the RCMP headquarters in Dartmouth last year.
Green and Baglee described what they experienced when they came into work the morning of April 19, not knowing anything about how a gunman had assaulted his partner, killed multiple neighbours in Portapique while masquerading as a police officer, and set houses on fire before fleeing the community the night before.
The overnight OCC supervisor and risk manager briefed him on what had been happening and the ongoing search for the gunman around 6:30 a.m., Green said, and he recalled wondering, "How is this real?"
Baglee offered to help on the call-taking side of the office, but due to the early COVID-19 precautions, she said they were spacing out staff and there was only room for the seven call-takers working that morning. She added there were five dispatchers on the other side of a wall, and she often ran back and forth to deliver messages that day.
Although in the first few hours Green believed the incident was over and they would eventually find the gunman in Portapique, he followed their policies for an active shooter and helped update the incoming morning crew. But then, he said things escalated just after 9:30 a.m. when the report of a new shooting victim in Wentworth came in. ...
One of the hardest things was knowing that the only way information about the gunman was coming in was because "something horrific" had happened, Green said, and police always seemed about 30 seconds behind him.
At one point, Baglee said the risk manager, Staff Sgt. Bruce Briers, asked her to call Truro police and tell them to lock down their town, so they could be prepared in case the gunman came their way.
The inquiry has heard the call from Baglee that came into the Truro force at 10:37 a.m., by which time the gunman had already driven through the town's downtown core.
Truro police Insp. Darrin Smith said in a commission interview that he didn't have enough information about setting up roadblocks, including where the gunman might be coming from, and felt like the direction was a "panic statement" thrown out to the dispatcher without any real forethought.
But Baglee said she had given the Truro officers every piece of information she knew, and it's not her job to instruct any police agency on what they do next.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/911-centre-struggling-with-ha...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/911-centre-struggling-with-ha...
