HALIFAX –
A senior RCMP official in Nova Scotia says he does not regret that no emergency signal was sent during the 13-hour assassination rage in 2020, saying it would lead to more dead police officers.
Leah Scanlan, director of strategic communications for Nova Scotia’s RCMP, told investigators with the public investigation into the mass shooting that she was “glad” there was no warning across the province for an armed man driving a copy of a police cruiser.
A transcript of her February interview was released on Tuesday at a public hearing on the April 2020 killings of 22 people, including RCMP Const. Heidi Stevenson.
If there was an alert alert broadcast on radio, television and smartphones, Scanlan speculated: “My gut? You would have more dead cops because it’s the police in the countryside. “
Scanlan said that in a small town like Portapique, where the murder began, people were taking matters into their own hands. If the public knew the shooter was posing as an RCMP officer, that information would put RCMP members at risk, she said.
“I had a member (RCMP) call me and they were petrified to be on the road,” she continued. “They thought they would be killed because it was public.”
However, Truro, NS, police chief Dave McNeill told an investigation Monday that a preparedness warning would save lives.
Instead, the RCMP used social media to provide updates to New Scots, a solution that has been criticized by the families of some victims.
Scanlan said in an interview that Twitter and Facebook are effective. “We have always communicated on social media. That was best practice … and show me better police practice? There is no such thing, “she told interviewers.
Nearly 10 hours after the shooter killed his first victim, Mounties posted the first tweet showing Portapic had an “active shooting situation” at 8:02 a.m. But the tweet did not mention the suspect’s name or anything about his escape car. It is also not clear that he is on the move.
Relatives of some of the victims say that if the RCMP provided earlier public warnings with this key information, several lives could be saved.
At 8:04 a.m., the RCMP issued an internal signal to its members stating that the suspect was potentially using a fully marked Ford Taurus police cruiser and could be anywhere in the province. The same message was then sent to all police departments in the province. At 8:54 a.m., the RCMP sent a tweet that included a photo identifying 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman as a suspect, but there was still no mention of his car.
This was followed by another tweet at 10:04 a.m. after RCMP communications received approval to share details of the cruiser’s replica. This tweet warns people to avoid Highway 4 in Glenholm, NS, but does not mention the vehicle.
Asked why the information was omitted from the tweet, Scanlan said it was written by one of its communications officials, who she said did not know about the cruiser’s reply.
Working from home, the communications staff “was not in a conference call where everyone had the same information,” Scanlan said, because they were busy talking and answering calls from employees. She said each of the five members of her communications team was allowed to tweet independently, and at least three of her staff were tasked with posting on social media on the morning of April 19th.
It wasn’t until 10:17 a.m. that the RCMP tweeted a photo of the vehicle.
Scanlan also faced questions about why an 11:06 a.m. RCMP tweet misidentified the type of vehicle the shooter was driving after abandoning his cruiser cue. Scanlan said she hadn’t tweeted, but suggested there was no time to check for absolute accuracy.
If there is no risk to life, time could be taken to verify vehicle information, she said. But in a situation like the mass shooting, “they could say a purple plane and it would go out.”
Scanlan is due to testify before Wednesday’s public inquiry.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 7, 2022.
This story was created with the financial support of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
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