RCMP Const. Craig Hubley, left, and Const. Ben MacLeod appear at the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry in Halifax on April 14.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
Two Nova Scotia RCMP officers described the aftermath in a rural community where a mass shooter began his attack two years ago as worse than anything they’d encountered in their careers. But it was the sight of an injured dog that stuck with Constable Craig Hubley.
On the morning of April 19, 2020, the RCMP canine handler was at the Portapique, N.S., home of Greg and Jamie Blair, the first two victims of their neighbour, Gabriel Wortman, who was in the process of murdering 22 people over a 13-hour period. Lying on the steps was a badly wounded miniature pinscher named Zoey. The dog had been shot in the hind legs by the gunman.
Constable Hubley said he was disturbed by the indiscriminate nature of the violence he was seeing: multiple murder victims, burned homes. The shooting of the family pet gave him some insight into the mind of the killer police were after.
“What struck me was just how intent he was on causing harm, that he could shoot a dog,” Constable Hubley said on Thursday in Halifax, at a public inquiry into the mass shooting. “That animal for me was poignant. I’ve been to other murder scenes, and crimes of passion. But never where somebody would vent rage like that.”
Nova Scotia public inquiry hears how mass shooter killed his last victim
The RCMP officer told the inquiry he thought of that dog, and the killer’s many human victims, hours later when he confronted the gunman at an Irving gas station in Enfield, N.S. When the gunman, seated in a stolen car, began to raise a silver pistol in his right hand, the RCMP dog handler began shooting.
Constable Ben MacLeod, who was riding along with Constable Hubley, also started shooting. He told the inquiry the wounded dog left a mark on him, too.
“That dog hit home for a lot of us,” Constable MacLeod said. “Vindictiveness is a good word. Evil is a good word. Somebody who could do that is evil.”
Before he spotted the killer at the gas station, Constable Hubley had carefully studied photographs of the wanted man at an RCMP command post. He told the inquiry he had tried to burn them into his mind’s eye.
When he and Constable MacLeod pulled into the gas station at 11:24 a.m. to refuel, he said, he noticed a man wearing a white T-shirt, sitting in a grey Mazda at a pump across from the pair’s police SUV.
Constable MacLeod told the inquiry that in the “quarter second” after he emerged from the SUV his suspicions were aroused by the man, who seemed to be unaware that blood was running from a bump on his head. The inquiry heard that the gunman had been injured in a collision with another Mountie, Constable Heidi Stevenson, whom he had killed earlier that morning.
“He looked like a prize fighter sitting down between rounds,” Constable Hubley said.
The officer told the inquiry he was “100 per cent” sure the man he was looking at was the killer. “Benny, it’s him,” he called to Constable MacLeod as he lined the man up in the sights of his pistol.
At that moment, he recalled, the killer looked at him. This, he said, confirmed for him that the person in the car matched the pictures he’d seen that morning.
Both officers testified they started shooting when they saw the killer raise a silver-grey gun – a weapon he’d stolen from Constable Stevenson.
The inquiry heard that, in the seconds that followed, Constable Hubley fired 12 bullets through the Mazda’s passenger window, while Constable MacLeod, who came out of the SUV at roughly the same time, fired 11 rounds with his carbine.
The officers said they had no choice. The gunman wasn’t listening to commands, and had instead turned the gun on himself. In the moment, they testified, they felt they needed to stop him before he reached Halifax.
“He was killing innocent people and I believed he was heading for the city,” Constable MacLeod said.
A medical examiner later determined that the gunman had fired a bullet into his own brain.
Nova Scotia is preparing to mark the two-year anniversary of the mass shooting on Monday and Tuesday, with flags at half-mast on all government buildings and a moment of silence to remember an attack that “forever changed us,” according to Premier Tim Houston.
Constable MacLeod said he understands there is a still lot of grief and anger in the province as a result of the killings. But the police have also been scarred by the attack, he testified.
“Life will never be the same for us,” he said.
With a report from the Canadian Press
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