Both a retired Mount and a criminal lawyer involved in the public investigation into the mass shooting in Nova Scotia say there is “more than enough” evidence for a search warrant, given three public complaints about the armed man in three years. .
They also say an RCMP officer who visited the shooter more than a dozen times in the years before the shooting must testify about their relationship.
The latest documents published by the Commission on Mass Victims, which examines the mass shooting that took 22 lives, set out the actions taken by the police in response to complaints against Gabriel Wortman in 2010, 2011 and 2013.
Michael Scott of Patterson Law, whose company represents the families of many of the victims, said the details of these files could be tarnished, but there appeared to be “quite specific complaints” where people expressed concerns about Wortman’s illegal weapons and his intention to uses them.
“I think under any circumstances, that would be more than enough for the police to go to the magistrate and get a search warrant,” Scott said in a recent interview.
Michael Scott, a lawyer representing some of the families, is questioning witnesses in the Commission on Mass Victims’ investigation. (Andrew Vaughn / Canadian Press)
In the first case, retired Halifax Regional Police Officer Cordell Poirier learned that the shooter had called his uncle in Alberta and allegedly threatened to kill his parents in New Brunswick. Poirier then spoke with his father, Paul Wortman, in June 2010, who said he believed his son had long-barreled weapons at Portapique’s villa and was an alcoholic.
He never had a firearms license.
But his father had not seen the weapons in more than five years. Given this gap, Poirier noted in his report that “no public safety order can be obtained without prior notification”.
He also told Paul Wortman that the threat file could not go anywhere unless he received “some cooperation” from his uncle, who reported the threat but he had never heard from him.
Poirier turned the case over to Bible Hill RCMP Const. Greg Wiley, as the shooter’s port in Portapic was under his jurisdiction. Wiley said he developed a professional relationship with him in early 2008 and last saw him in 2017.
Wiley said in an interview with a committee that he recalled the threat situation as a family dispute over property, but the gunman “did not sound more dissatisfied than anyone else.”
In May 2011, a police officer in Truro issued a bulletin about how he received a signal from a stranger that Gabriel Wortman had a weapon and wanted to “kill a cop.”
Poirier recognized Wortman’s name and called the Biblical Hill Squad, where he spoke with a chief to make sure he was aware of the new complaint. This Mountain said he would talk to Wiley and return to Poirier, but again the Halifax officer heard nothing more.
Wiley said he did not recall talking to Poirier in 2010. He said the RCMP was receiving “a gazelle of threat complaints”, so following each one was unrealistic.
According to an interview with commission investigators, Poirier said the Truro police officer, who originally filed the 2011 report, could not offer more details about the tipster, which may have supported the warrant case.
“As far as we’ve been told we get this advice, but there’s nothing we can do about it.” I can tell you as a lawyer, I don’t understand that, “Scott said.
Common anonymous advice: lawyer
Scott, who mainly practices criminal law, said he often encounters search warrants in drug cases when police have obtained judicial authorization based on advice.
Although the difference since Paul Wortman saw his son’s guns is “certainly not perfect,” Scott said details such as the 2011 adviser mentioning that firearms are stored in a compartment in the villa’s chimney. the shooter assumes first-hand knowledge – and this is “fairly reliable information” for command.
When investigators from the commission asked Wiley if the 2011 signal about the shooter wanting to kill a cop was alarming, he said he did not remember receiving anything “so official”.
He also said he did not recall a conversation with the leader of the Biblical Hill, with whom Poirier had spoken, or with anyone else in the follow-up squad around the shooter.
Sherry Benson-Podolchuk, a retired RCMP officer in Manitoba who left the force in 2009, said she recalled that issuing orders depended on Mountie’s identity. Some were “crazy” and always insisted on them, while others wanted to wait and make sure they had a lot of information.
Sherry Benson-Podolchuk has been a retired RCMP officer for 20 years and lives in Manitoba. She left the force in 2009 (CBC)
But she said the conclusion is that if an employee is unsure whether to ask for an order, he should call the Crown’s lawyer or someone else for his thoughts on the case.
“Just because we’re in uniform doesn’t mean we have all the answers,” Benson-Podolchuk said.
She said that if she had been in Wiley’s position, the 2011 bulletin would have raised a serious red flag in front of her and would have been enough to ask for a search warrant when combined with the threat to the family a year earlier.
When asked about Wiley’s comments that it was not realistic for the RCMP to address all “gazillion complaints of threats,” Benson-Podolchuk said, “Too bad. This is your damn job.”
She said the details of all of Wiley’s visits to the shooter after the complaints should have been entered into the police system, so if any later reports are received, those details will pop up.
Officer says writing warrant is “big deal”
When asked by a commission investigator about his experience with requesting warrants, Wiley said he “did not actually write any warrants” when he worked in Nova Scotia.
He added that the process is a “big deal” because someone will be removed from the road for an entire shift to complete one.
The National Police Federation, which represents RCMP members under the rank of inspector, said it believed there was “insufficient evidence” to allow RCMP officers to obtain a search warrant for a firearm at the attacker’s residence.
Wiley was a member of the RCMP for only a few years at Bible Hill when he first met the shooter around 2008 after investigating a case in which tools were stolen from his garage.
He said the shooter looked like a helpful person who could warn him about crime in the Portapique area, and had come to visit him about 16 times over the years.
RCMP vehicles block the crime scene in Portapic, NS, on April 26, 2020 (Olivier Lefebvre / CBC)
It is not clear when exactly Wiley’s visits took place, but most appear to have been between 2008 and 2011, before Mountie was transferred to Attorney Harbor in neighboring Cumberland County.
Mountie told the commission he had a “pretty good reference with Wortman, who has always been polite,” and said he “doesn’t seem like a bully.”
“It’s sad because he looks at the shooter through the prism of friendship,” Benson-Podolchuk said. “He rolled his eyes.
“You can still be friendly, get information. But when some information comes out that changes the way you look at this person, because … there’s a danger – then you have to go in there with that mindset.”
Wiley said there are no other sources in the Portapic community other than the shooter, but there are similar people in other areas with whom he would “stop and talk.”
Former Mountie speaks informant against source
Despite frequent visits and no follow-up to two complaints, Wiley said he had no special relationship with Wortman.
The RCMP has always denied that the shooter was an informant.
Benson-Podolchuk said there is a clear difference between an informant and a source, usually depending on the information shared: informants can be paid or unpaid, but there is “more formal process, there are documents to be done”.
Anyone can be a source, Benson-Podolchuk said, including citizens who stop talking to an officer while shopping and give them advice for a big party, for example.
Wiley told police and commission investigators that he never learned anything important from the shooter and never had a formal appointment. But when asked to provide notes from his time in the Bible Hill to the commission, he was unable to find them.
Benson-Podolchuk said the shooter sounded like a source from the community, but added that because of Wiley’s visits, it was understandable that people in Portapic suggested he was close to police.
“And as a result, they won’t tell her anything because they see, ‘Well, he’s already a friend of the police, no one would believe me,'” Benson-Podolchuk said.
A former informant says the process is very different
Paul Derry, who was a paid police informant and agent, including in connection with a 2000 Hells Angels shooting in Halifax, said that every time he provided information to the RCMP, it was secret and never included uniformed officers who show up at his home.
“It’s just that your patrol car makes its main patrols, especially if you’re new [to the RCMP]I guess it was just him [Wiley] getting to know the community, “he said.
Derry has written about his experience, filed lawsuits against the RCMP, and spoken at conferences where police learn how to deal with sources.
“No one would want to see dirt [Nova Scotia RCMP] “Division H more than me, but I’m not convinced,” he said.
Derry said interactions with specialized drug researchers or detectives would be more suspicious than conversations with Mountie, who recently left the landfill.
In his experience, there are specific protocols for working with paid informants, where they are assigned a coded number and deal only with their manipulator.
“For the most part, front line officers, they don’t know much about working with informants or the source, unless they want to go down that path, they don’t know anything about it,” he said. “It’s a secret for some reason. It’s a very dangerous world.”
He calls on Wiley to testify
Poirier also told the committee that Wiley had told him that the shooter “was a good friend of his”, but Wiley said he would not describe …
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