RCMP officers go over a car collision scene involving the fake RCMP car driven by the gunman in Shubenacadie, N.S., on April 19, 2020.JOHN MORRIS/Reuters
Two hours before being killed by a gunman who was on a rampage across rural Nova Scotia, RCMP Constable Heidi Stevenson asked her supervisors why they hadn’t told the public to be on the lookout for the killer’s replica police vehicle.
The Mountie, one of 22 victims of Canada’s deadliest mass shooting, had joined the manhunt for the gunman, Gabriel Wortman, on the morning of April 19, 2020.
“Has there been discussion about a media release in regard to that vehicle?” Constable Stevenson asked her supervisors over her police radio at 8:44 a.m. She said she wanted the public to be aware the killer’s car looked identical to an RCMP cruiser.
The response from the RCMP dispatcher was short: “10-4.” The request, which was passed on to Constable Stevenson’s RCMP commanders, was shared for the first time on Monday with the Mass Casualty Commission, an ongoing public inquiry into the shooting.
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The lack of proper communication with the public during the shooting is one of the central questions for the inquiry, which will make recommendations on how to prevent similar tragedies. Earlier hearings revealed the RCMP’s district superintendent didn’t know the province’s emergency alert system existed, and other Mounties admitted they mistakenly thought the gunman was already dead, and that there was no need to warn the public.
Police knew the gunman’s name and that he had a replica police vehicle shortly after the first 911 calls on April 18, the day before Constable Stevenson’s death. Families of victims have said that if the RCMP had released that information to the public sooner, the nine deaths on the second day of the rampage could have been prevented.
After Constable Stevenson’s radio call, the RCMP waited another hour and a half before alerting the public – through Twitter, not the wider-reaching Alert Ready system – that the gunman was driving a look-alike police vehicle.
Constable Stevenson’s commanders never responded to her request for a media alert. At 10:49 a.m., she had a head-on collision with the gunman himself, who fatally shot her at close range after a brief exchange of gunfire that caused both drivers to get out of their vehicles.
Minutes earlier, the gunman had pulled up beside another Mountie, Constable Chad Morrison, and opened fire. The RCMP officer was shot in the arms and chest. The inquiry heard his hard body armour saved his life.
After the gunman murdered Constable Stevenson, he killed his 21st victim, Joey Webber, when Mr. Webber stopped to help at the crash scene in Shubenacadie, N.S., about 50 kilometres north of Halifax. A witness told the inquiry that the gunman ordered Mr. Webber into the back seat of the RCMP replica vehicle and shot him. The vehicle was then set on fire. The 36-year-old father had gone out that morning to buy furnace oil for his home.
The killer stole Constable Stevenson’s handgun and Mr. Webber’s SUV and left, driving toward the home of his final victim – Gina Goulet, who, like him, was a denturist. That last homicide, and the killer’s final moments alive before he was shot dead by an RCMP officer, will be the focus on Wednesday, when the inquiry resumes.
Police missteps during the manhunt were under the microscope earlier on Monday, when the Mass Casualty Commission heard from a local fire chief who sharply criticized the way the Mounties had handled a case of mistaken identity.
On the second day of the mass shooting, a firehall in Onslow, N.S., was designated as a rest centre for people who had been evacuated from Portapique, N.S., where the killings began. Fire Chief Greg Muise and Deputy Chief Darrell Currie told the inquiry they were given very little information about the killer or his whereabouts.
The inquiry heard that Mr. Muise and Mr. Currie were in the building with evacuee Richard Ellison, whose son Corrie Ellison had been murdered by the gunman the night before. At 10:17 a.m. they heard gunfire outside, and an emergency management co-ordinator ran inside yelling, “Shots fired! Shots fired! Get down!”
Mr. Muise and Mr. Currie said they assumed the killer had fired the shots, so they hid in a back room, where they built a barricade from wooden tables and metal chairs.
Both men said it was another hour before they learned the bullets had been fired by two RCMP officers, who had mistaken the emergency management co-ordinator for the killer. The coordinator wasn’t hurt in the shooting, and took cover inside the hall.
“I remember thinking, ‘How am I going to die?’” Mr. Currie told the inquiry during a panel discussion. “Am I going to bleed out on the floor of this comfort centre? Are they going to shoot through the wall? It was pretty horrific.”
The two firefighters told the inquiry the close call was so terrifying that they both now require medications and counselling to cope.
The National Police Federation, which is the RCMP’s union, defended the officers on Monday, pointing out that both have been cleared by Nova Scotia’s Serious Incident Response Team for their roles in the shooting, which happened during a tense and chaotic search for the gunman. The federation said “each acted to the best of their abilities to fulfil their duty to try and stop the killer, based on the knowledge, information, and resources available to them at the time.”
Mr. Muise and Mr. Currie said that, had they known more about what was going on that day, they would have recommended against opening the firehall to evacuees, given the fact that the killer’s location was unknown.
Mr. Muise said it was another 11 months before senior RCMP staff showed up at the firehall to talk about what had happened.
“I don’t think the RCMP wanted anything to do with the firehall,” he told the inquiry. “They were shoving us under the table and hoping this would go away. I don’t think they realize what they put us through.”
With a report from the Canadian Press
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