Senior RCMP members defended conflicting communication decisions during the mass shooting in Nova Scotia, including using Twitter instead of an emergency signal – which one manager said would cause more deaths.
Leah Scanlan, director of strategic communications at the RCMP during the riot that killed 22 people, also told investigators investigating the tragedy that she saw no room for improvement in the communication strategy used on 18 and 19 April 2020.
“I wouldn’t change anything at all,” Scanlan told investigators in an interview last fall. “I thought about it a lot … I wouldn’t do anything different.”
Scanlan is due to testify at the Truro Mass Victims Commission this week.
She told commission officials she had implemented the provincial RCMP’s social media policy since joining the force as a civilian in 2009. She said Twitter and Facebook were effective tools for communicating directly with the public about the activities of RCMP.
The use of Twitter to provide critical information about the shooter on April 19, 2020 and the timing of this information are controversial points for the families of the victims. Some said their loved ones would not check Twitter early Sunday morning.
Families say an emergency warning sent much earlier about the shooter’s police cruiser’s replica could save lives.
The only information the RCMP released on April 18 was that they were responding to a firearms complaint in the Portapique rural community and that people in the area should stay inside.
The next morning, they tweeted that they were still at a crime scene involving an active shooter. But they did not reveal whether anyone was injured or killed.
cap. Lisa Croto sent this tweet on April 18, 2020. This was the first public mention by the RCMP of a situation in Portapic, NS (Twitter)
Scanlan said she used Twitter when she was sent to Moncton, NB, on June 5, 2014, to take on communication responsibilities during the hunt for the man who shot three Mountains and wounded two others.
She said she relied on that experience when she started work on the morning of April 19, 2020.
“A lot of what we did at Codiac [N.B.] … it’s reassuring, “she said.” I remember if I’m hiding in my house, because most people hide with their cell phones and most people in Nova Scotia, it’s like we have a lot of followers on Twitter, so I thought that I’m there with you, just to comfort them in some way. “
Scanlan, who told the investigation that she had been out of service due to illness since January 2021, expressed disappointment with public criticism of the communication tactics used during the riot.
She criticized both the prime minister and then-prime minister Stephen McNeill for commenting on the lack of an emergency warning and the “change of story”.
“There is no situation room, we are not a human being attached to a field policeman who tweets live from the field, it doesn’t work that way,” she said. “The public no longer knows what the reality is about communication. Here’s how it’s done. There is no other way to do it that someone has still come up with. I don’t know how else you will get information. Like … I can’t teleport him. “
Access to rural areas is limited
There was immediate discontent after the shooting by people who pointed to the challenges of Internet access in rural Scotland and that the vast majority of residents do not use Twitter.
When asked by researcher Christa Smith about reading Twitter, given concerns about accessibility, Scanlan did not answer directly. Instead, she speaks broadly about how the forces use Twitter and Facebook to increase more traditional communications.
“So people in rural Scotland who don’t follow Twitter and Facebook… all the news outlets follow our Twitter, so it’s kind of like Twitter and Facebook are a surplus of what already exists,” she said. “That’s the best way I can say it.”
Smith and her two colleagues did not follow.
RCMP vehicles continued to block the crime scene in Portapic, NS, on April 26, 2020 (Olivier Lefebvre / CBC)
Michael Hallows, an emergency signal expert, told the Mass Victims Commission in his testimony on May 11 that social media was not a good option for public communication during an emergency.
“The problem with social media is that if you have Twitter, you have to follow the right channel to get the official word, and it can therefore leave a lot of people out of communication,” he told the committee.
Key information delayed
Interviews and emails from a number of RCMP staff showed that the forces confirmed the existence of a cruiser replica with full stickers by 8 a.m. on April 19 and circulated a photo to Nova Scotia police agencies, including the emergency response team traveling from New Brunswick as a backup.
Sgt. Steve Halliday, now retired, testified before the MCC on May 17 that he had asked another senior officer, a sergeant major. Adi McCallum, shortly before 8 a.m., worked with Scanlan to send information about the cruiser. Halliday told the committee he did not know why it took so long for the tweet to materialize.
McCallum has not yet testified, but told investigators he sent Scanlan photos of the cruiser and then the shooter in successive emails around 8 p.m. The photo of the suspect was posted on Twitter at 8:54 a.m.
Twenty-two people died on April 18 and 19, 2020. Top row left: Gina Gulet, Dawn Gulenchin, Jolin Oliver, Frank Gulenchin, Sean McLeod, Alana Jenkins. Second row: John Hall, Lisa McCully, Joey Weber, Heidi Stevenson, Heather O’Brien and Jamie Blair. Third row from the top: Kristen Beaton, Lillian Campbell, Joan Thomas, Peter Bond, Tom Bagley and Greg Blair. Bottom line: Emily Tuck, Joy Bond, Corey Ellison and Aaron Tuck. (CBC)
The email with the photo of the shooter was sent at 8:02 am and was published by the inquiry. The email with the photo of the cruiser was not provided.
At 9:04 a.m., Scanlan sent an email to Cpl. Jennifer Clark to ask Clark to “assemble something” with the image of the cruiser’s replica. At 9:49 a.m., Clark sent an email to Scanlan saying, “APPROVED by Steve Halliday: Tweet for approval – please immediately.”
The documents do not provide a record of Clark’s response from Scanlan, and the social media activity schedule provided by the RCMP shows that Clark eventually tweeted at 10:17 p.m.
Lost lives
In the time between the RCMP receiving the photo of the cruiser’s replica and the eventual posting of the tweet, Tom Bagley, Lillian Campbell, Heather O’Brien and Kristen Beaton were shot and killed.
O’Brien and Beaton, colleagues at the Victorian Order of Nurses, were sending messages to friends and relatives about the Portapic shooting the night before. Beaton had received the photo of the shooter, which the RCMP tweeted an hour earlier.
During the same period, many RCMP staffers told the MCC that after learning of the cruiser’s replica, they sent text messages or called family members to tell them to stay home with the doors locked.
During an interview in September 2021, Smith asked Scanlan about the delay in posting the tweet on the cruiser’s replica.
Scanlan began to respond, and then Smith interrupted him, talking about an earlier tweet with a photo of the shooter, which was published within minutes of receiving the photo. Investigators never returned to the issue of the delayed tweet.
Signal Ready ‘Nothing’
Investigators asked Insp. Dustin Rodier, who was in charge of the control center at the time, had a brief talk about using the emergency alert system.
Provincial Emergency Management officials told MCC investigators that they had contacted the RCMP to offer use of the system on April 19, but the shooter was shot and killed while discussing the content of the message.
Rodier told investigators that the Alert Ready system “was not something” for the RCMP at the time of the shooting, and said it would be “catastrophic” to send one.
Her second commander, Glen Byrne, went a step further. The commander of the dispatch center told investigators that there was no preparedness system at the time of the shooting in Nova Scotia.
“It has never existed in this province, no matter what anyone tells you,” he said in an interview on August 26, 2021. Amber Alert existed. Alert Ready never existed. “
The province used the Alert Ready system a week before the shooting to urge Nova Scotians not to gather for Easter, given the risk of spreading COVID-19.
Byrne said the April 19 signal would not only be catastrophic, but also deadly.
“Would there be a difference?” Yes, it would be. More people would have died than died in this incident, “he said. “We had people on the phone we had to talk to who had visibility [of the replica police car] … If a alert was issued, we would answer “What should I do? Am I allowed to go out?
Hallow denied this view in his testimony, saying he had never seen evidence of it happening in international jurisdictions where signals had been used. He said public education, clear operating procedures and well-crafted signals are essential to prevent panic.
Change of warning rules
Since then, the RCMP has gained direct access to the alert system and trained staff to use it.
But Rodier told investigators that it was important that all future signals came with much advance warning so that communication centers could be prepared.
“It is so important to us that if there is even a chance that a signal will come out, we will call another risk manager, we will call additional resources,” she said.
“We will make sure that all the other main answer points in the province know …
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