Nova Scotia public inquiry hears from officer who interviewed perpetrator of mass shooting

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A Mountie told the public inquiry into the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting he visited the gunman’s home 15 or 16 times in the years before the killer’s rampage, but couldn’t remember being called to investigate any complaints about death threats or weapons.

RCMP Constable Greg Wiley also testified he lost his notebooks relating to those specific complaints, during sometimes-combative testimony from the Mountie who insisted he didn’t consider Gabriel Wortman a friend despite the frequent visits.

Lawyers for victims’ families and one of the inquiry’s commissioners pressed him on his inability to remember any details on previous complaints that he was asked to investigate involving the gunman, while recalling multiple casual encounters with the killer.

“You have zero recollection, and I’m struggling with that. I don’t know how that could be,” said inquiry commissioner Leanne Fitch.

“All I’m saying is I’m sharing with you what I can recollect,” he responded.

The gunman’s chummy relationship with the local RCMP has been a focus of the inquiry examining the rampage that killed 22 people over 13 hours in April, 2020. Testifying under oath via video link, Constable Wiley told the Mass Casualty Commission that people following the case may have the wrong idea about the nature of his relationship with the killer, based on the number of times they met.

“He was never a personal friend of mine,” he said. “I would never describe him as a friend.”

The inquiry, which started hearings in February, has heard that in June, 2010, Constable Wiley was told to investigate allegations that Mr. Wortman had threatened to kill his parents. But his efforts led nowhere.

On Tuesday, Constable Wiley repeatedly told the inquiry he did not recall the case or the Halifax Regional Police officer who asked him to contact Mr. Wortman to determine whether he owned any weapons, which could have prompted a request for a search warrant. While he testified he didn’t remember the incident, he said the details contained within the complaint wouldn’t have been enough to justify seeking a search warrant to check the gunman’s property – an assumption that was challenged by Commissioner Fitch.

“In order to ascertain all that information, wouldn’t there have to be an investigation?” she asked.

According to an inquiry report released in May, the Halifax Regional Police service led the 2010 investigation into the alleged threats. The investigating officer, now-retired Sergeant Cordell Poirier, said he asked Constable Wiley on several occasions to visit Mr. Wortman’s home.

Mr. Wortman’s spouse, Lisa Banfield, told the inquiry on July 15 that Constable Wiley had come to their Portapique property in June, 2010, to see whether there were guns at the residence. Ms. Banfield said Constable Wiley was shown a couple of non-functioning antique guns during a visit that lasted 10 minutes.

On Tuesday, commission lawyer Jamie Van Wart read related statements from Sgt. Poirier and Ms. Banfield and asked Constable Wiley whether they refreshed his memory.

“No it doesn’t,” he said. “Either my memory has slipped, or it’s coincidental that we talked about firearms around that same period of time. I had no idea that there was an interest in him regarding firearms. To the best of my recollection, I was never officially tasked to investigate the perpetrator of the Portapique incident in any way, shape or form.”

Constable Wiley, an RCMP member since 2006, said he saw Mr. Wortman as someone who was co-operative and could be helpful in an unofficial capacity.

“I only ever stopped to see him as a community contact,” he said. “It’s someone that might point you in the right direction informally.”

The RCMP officer said Mr. Wortman was not an official “coded source,” adding that he got to know him after the denture-maker called police to report a property crime in 2007 or 2008 – long before the killing rampage in April, 2020.

“He was somebody who was handy. He did a lot projects around his home,” Constable Wiley said. “He showed me some of those things and I got to know him.”

Constable Wiley went on to say Mr. Wortman helped him solve the property crime case by “keeping his ear to the ground” and reporting a probable suspect.

“I know in retrospect, as everyone looks at this and sees what he has done, they probably think I’m out of my mind. But at the time, that individual was level-headed, articulate, well-spoken, mannerly, seemed pro-police and he helped me with the investigation without taking things into his own hands,” he testified.

Constable Wiley is also linked to a 2017 murder investigation that is under federal review.

Susie Butlin, a grandmother from Bayhead, N.S., had complained to the RCMP about being sexually assaulted and harassed by her neighbour Ernest Ross Duggan before he killed her in September, 2017. A month earlier, Constable Wiley had received Ms. Butlin’s complaints of harassment and was assigned to the case.

The Mountie “determined there was no basis for charges” and advised her to block her neighbour on Facebook, according to the internal police report. The investigation into Ms. Butlin’s death is now under a federal civilian review examining the RCMP’s response to her complaints and the flaws in its handling of sexual assault investigations.

Unlike other witnesses who have appeared before the inquiry in Halifax, Constable Wiley was given an exemption from having his testimony broadcast via livestream. The request for accommodation was made by the federal Attorney-General, but the commission did not say why the request was granted. The commission’s decision also states that audio and video recordings of his testimony shall not be shared or published for wider dissemination.

With a report from The Canadian Press

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