TRURO, NS –
Retired senior Mountain described his horror when asked how long it took five hours before anyone told him about eyewitnesses who encountered a mass murderer while fleeing the 2020 shootings in Nova Scotia.
It was an example of a disruption in communication – along with confusion over who was responsible – revealed Thursday in testimony before a public investigation into the mass shooting.
After almost 40 years of service, the staff sergeant. Al Carroll was one month after retiring on April 18, 2020, when he was drafted into the detachment in Bible Hill, NS, where he was a senior officer on duty, as an active shooter was at large in nearby Portapic, NS
Twenty-two people were killed by the shooter in his 13-hour villa.
By 2 a.m. on April 19, Carol said he had moved to a command post in the Great Village, east of Portapic, and at 3:30 a.m. he questioned the three police officers who first entered the community.
Police encountered Andrew MacDonald, who was wounded when the killer shot at him, and his wife, Kate MacDonald, as they fled the killer around 10:28 p.m.
The inquiry found out earlier that MacDonald had seen the killer and the replica of the RCMP car he was driving, and that Kate MacDonald had told Const. Vicki Colford that there is another potential way out of Portapic.
She also talks to a staff sergeant. Brian Rehill, the risk manager at the Truro Operations Communication Center, said about 10:30 p.m., confirming the suspect’s first name and that he had shot at them from a “Chengen car.”
But Carol, who had officers and possible escape routes, was not informed of any of these events until the interrogation in the early hours of the morning – as the mountains continued to suspect that the killer was still in the area.
“Surprisingly (Constance Aaron) Patton mentioned this Andrew MacDonald and that he (MacDonald) was shot, and I said to myself, ‘What?'” Carol said.
Roger Burrell, a senior lawyer for the investigation, asked why “this fundamentally important information” did not reach Carol.
“I can’t explain how it didn’t happen (to us),” Carol replied, adding that he had not been advised to do so by Rehil.
Carol also said she had not heard a radio broadcast at 22:48 from Colford, saying: “We have been told that there is a road, something like a road that one can get out of here before, if one knows the ways of everything.” public investigation says the killer is believed to have escaped a dirt road that was not blocked by police around 10:45 p.m.
Asked if Colford’s information would help, Carol said, “I certainly would.”
He disagreed with Beryl’s suggestion that there were “two many chefs in the kitchen” in the early hours of the response, claiming that he had made it clear that Rehil was responsible.
However, he acknowledged that as Sgt. Andy O’Brien, a non-commissioned officer who went on the radio to insist on not sending a second team of three officers, surprised him because he thought O’Brien was still home.
“It could have been a breach of command. Should Andy (O’Brien) have made that decision? He should have let it go up the chain,” he testified.
Commissioner Leanne Fitch, a former Fredericton police chief, later said the testimony revealed a “significant breakdown in communication”.
Carol also gave a new version of what happened around 9 a.m. on April 19, when he was contacted by a staff sergeant who offered to release a press release about the copy of the police car. Carol replied by email that the request had been rejected.
He testified that he had contacted his chief, a sergeant. Steve Halliday to discuss the issue and it was decided that the issue should not be published at this time.
However, in testimony last week, Halliday said he had issued an order around 8 a.m. to release the release “in the near future” and did not recall ordering Carol – or anyone else – to postpone the release.
Carol answered questions by calling Zoom instead of attending in person as part of the accommodation that the three commissioners of investigation provided to him and two other senior Mounties this week. Unlike Carol, the other two will avoid cross-examination by lawyers who are relatives of the 22 victims.
The accommodation prompted several lawyers to boycott Wednesday’s hearing, and the protest continued on Thursday.
PROTEST OF FAMILY MEMBERS
About a dozen people protested on the sidewalk in front of the Truro Hearing Room. Among them was Charlene Bagley, whose father Tom was fatally shot by the shooter early on April 19, 2020, while on a walk in West Wentworth, NS
“Families have been patient long enough,” Bagley said, holding a neon green sign reading “23 Reasons to Tell the Truth,” referring to the fact that one in 22 victims is pregnant.
“We wanted answers and we wanted the truth …. With the announcement of accommodation this week, it just shows that we will probably never get this.”
Bagley said the investigation’s approach to the trauma was wrong.
“Trauma for whom?” she asked. “They don’t think about the other people involved and their trauma – only the police. Their trauma seems to surpass that of everyone else.”
Investigators say the gunman, 51-year-old prosthetic technician Gabriel Wortman, was shot dead by two Mounties shortly before 11:30 a.m. on April 19 when he stopped at a gas station north of Halifax to refuel the stolen car.
This Canadian Press report was first published on May 26, 2022.
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