RCMP Supt. Dustin Rodier testified about the Alert Ready system during the Commission’s Inquiry into Mass Victims of Mass Murders in Rural Nova Scotia on April 18/19, 2020 in Truro, NS on June 7. Andrew Vaughn / The Canadian Press
Mount Scots in Nova Scotia say they did not know how to use the Canadian Alert Ready mobile alert system before an armed man killed 22 people in a 13-hour shooting.
Testifying on Tuesday in an investigation into the deadliest mass shooting in the country, two RCMP officers and a civilian described the communication chaos that ensued as police struggled to warn the public about a man dressed as Mountie and driving a replica of an RCMP team car.
After the shooting in 2020, the police are facing intense criticism for not sending a signal to people’s mobile phones and for relying mainly on Twitter to spread advice about the active shooter.
The Nova Scotia Mass Victims Commission heard testimony that Mounties had an almost complete lack of organizational awareness of cell phone signaling capabilities. This made them struggle on their first attempt to issue such a warning – which they never managed to send and which they began working on only about 10 minutes before the Nova Scotia shooter was shot.
The Alert Ready system “was not on our radar. It was not on any police radar across the country, “said RCMP superintendent Dustin Rodier.
“The only conversation I ever had with anyone about Alert Ready was in the days that followed,” said Jennifer Clark, a former RCMP corporal.
RCMP civilian employee Glen Mason, the emergency planning coordinator, said he had seen Alert Ready only as a channel for weather warnings and kidnapping alerts until the morning of the mass shooting. “It was a ‘shelter on the spot’ for strong winds, a tornado – something like that,” he said.
Mountis, who testified, was working in public communications during the attack, which began late Saturday night, April 18, 2020, and ended when Mountis shot the shooter around 11:30 a.m. the next day.
The Alert Ready system is available across Canada for government officials to send emergency alerts via television, radio and, from 2018, on mobile phones. The technology is applied from coast to coast, but statistics show that provincial governments that control access use the system at radically different speeds and for different types of threats. British Columbia, for example, had never used it before last summer’s deadly heat wave and forest fires.
Nova Scotia mass shooting investigation faces criticism for allowing police to avoid cross-examination
This spring, the RCMP published alert reports for its staff, which include the formal establishment of national and provincial alarm coordinators.
The investigation found that Mounties did not mention Alert Ready in their communication with each other when the attacks erupted, even when police were looking for better ways to warn the public about the shooter.
A commission document reads: “At 22:47 on 18 April 2020, the RCMP Commander for Colchester County, Staff Sergeant Al Carroll, contacted the Chief of Dispatcher of the Operational Communication Center (OCC) Jen McCallum to ask if members of the community in Portapik can be contacted by 911 and have been warned to take shelter on the spot. “
But such technology did not exist, so Mounties is instead searching the RCMP’s crime databases for phone numbers they could use to call residents of the region.
By 7:30 a.m. the next morning, RCMP officers were distributing photos of the suspect and his cruiser replica, the commission said in a statement. But that information reached Nova Scotia’s RCMP Twitter account hours later.
At 8:02 a.m., nearly 10 hours after the shooter killed his first victim, Mounties posted the first tweet indicating that there was an “active shooter situation” in Portapik.
The first public tweet, which included a photo of the 51-year-old suspect, came out at 8:54 a.m. And it wasn’t until 10:17 a.m. that the RCMP of Nova Scotia posted a photo of the cruiser’s replica.
Lawyers representing family members said delaying the release of such vital information cost lives. Nine of the 22 victims were killed Sunday morning, most of them after 10 a.m. – including one Mounti who faced the shooter.
During the attacks, the RCMP posted 12 posts on Twitter, five posts on Facebook and one news release.
Mounties did not come up with the idea to use technology to signal mobile phones. The use of Nova Scotia’s Alert Ready public warning system appears to have been considered for the first time at approximately 8:19 a.m. on 19 April 2020 by Nova Scotia Emergency Management [EMO]”, Reads a document from the inquiry.
The Commission’s records show that EMO staff started calling RCMP staff at 10:32 a.m. to ask if they wanted a signal. Police lines were flooded, but the EMO eventually succeeded. This in turn sparked conversations with damaged telephones involving Mr Mason and officers.
“If you want to run Alert Ready, they can do it in minutes,” Mr Mason told a colleague at 11:17 a.m., handing the offer to EMO.
“Okay, so they took what, helicopter, ready,” said Senior Sergeant Steve Ettinger, RCMP’s risk management officer.
“No, they don’t have a helicopter, they have an Alert Ready, which is a cell phone signal,” said Mr Mason, a civilian member of the RCMP.
“Oh,” said the sergeant. Ettinger, “cell phone signal. Oh, yes, good. ”
The conversation involved shouting messages to close commanders for approval, and ended with a loose plan for other mountains to draft the text of the message.
But RCMP officers shot the suspect minutes later, just before 11:30 a.m.
With a report from The Canadian Press
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