Halifax’s regional police “have made no effort to get involved in the hunt for Gabriel Wortman,” said a sergeant in the emergency response team, who is retiring after the mass shootings in Nova Scotia.
This “despite the requests of (non-commissioned officers) at the scene,” said Charles Nogall, one of these non-commissioned officers, to the Commission on Mass Victims in an interview last September.
“It was a battle for resources, it was a battle to summon people.
Nauggle spent 32 years in the force before retiring, the last 15 as a member of the emergency response team. For the past two years, including in April 2020, when the mass shootings took place, he was the team commander of the 28-member unit.
He was called to work before dawn on April 19, 2020.
“That was denied.”
Naugle said Sergeant. Craig Robinson, who worked with the HRP emergency response team the night before and briefed him on the morning of April 19, had asked the current commander for more resources to search Wortman’s office and apartment on Portland Street.
“He asked for extra members just to have enough to fill a team, and that was refused,” Nauggle said.
The RCMP wants Wortman’s clinic on Portland Street searched, he said.
“We had information about explosives, we had information about all firearms. We didn’t have enough to enter. We barely had enough to watch it safely. ”
Nauggle told the public investigation lawyers that “the leadership of the Halifax Regional Police will probably be upset that I came in and said that.”
He uses the analogy of a burning house in a narrow subdivision.
“Your neighbor is an idiot, you don’t get along with him, but anyway, he’s your neighbor. His house is on fire and he is there with a garden hose trying to put out the fire. And you see that, firstly, its place is burning and, secondly, the flames will threaten you. Do you go there with your garden hose and help him, or do you just say it doesn’t matter because you’re an idiot?
“Sufficient resources to help”
Halifax Regional Police “had enough resources to help,” Naugel said. “We made no … any effort to sustain these resources, one in anticipation of a problem in Halifax that everyone could see coming down the pipe or standing them … up and saying, ‘RCMP, here’s what we have to offer you. Do you want to make the outer perimeter? ”
Halifax police have dog teams that did not bring, he said, noting that they may have been offered.
“Before I left, everyone knew my point of view,” Nauggle said. “No one has ever done anything to influence my opinion of how we have not helped.”
Members of the HRP’s criminal investigation department “asked to come in” on the morning of April 19 to obtain information about the mass murderer.
“We had meetings with him,” Naugel said. “Two of the members of the (emergency response team) who worked tonight, like Saturday night with Craig Robinson until Sunday morning, actually dealt with him downstairs at the clinic in her blocked police car. So they knew him. We haven’t … as far as I know, we haven’t done anything to dig up information. ”
Nauggle noted that the photo investigators received on a copy of Worthman’s police car during the dentist’s murderous rampage probably came from family members of Lisa Banfield, the killer’s husband.
“We got a picture of this from a family member and sent it to the RCMP that morning,” Naugel said.
“I don’t know if this was the first time this photo came out, but if it was the first time it came out, then it would be proof why we had to dig up more information from our area. The investigation, just detective work.
“They didn’t call anyone”
Naugel said he and Robinson had asked HRP officers to bring in more emergency response members while Mounties chased the killer.
“It is currently 7:48 a.m. (April 19, 2020) when I received a phone call from (now Inspector) Jeff Clark and he said they were not calling anyone.”
Naugel said there were other resources his former forces could call to work that day.
“Basically, we ran it as usual.”
Every officer working that day “knew it could be incredibly terrible,” Naugel said.
“Not that it wasn’t terrible in this area, but we knew it wasn’t too far from becoming an incredible disaster in HRM. We (had) other resources we could call. ”
The force has three unmarked sports vehicles, night vision equipment and four or five “very competent” snipers, Naugel said.
And the city’s emergency response team has been cross-trained with the RCMP’s emergency response team and “know very little,” he said.
“We would do it”
Of course, there is always a little grinding of the gears, but all this is a bunch of people of type A. But I can guarantee you that in HRM, if they call and ask us to stay and watch their cars to help the outer perimeter, we will do it.
Naugol told the investigation that there are US law enforcement websites where he will read reports on how different forces are dealing with active shooters.
“I’ve studied them up and down and I may not have a social life, but I’ve always thought about how we’re going to handle something like this in Halifax,” he said.
“And every time I thought about how we were going to do it, it was all we had. He was trying to overcome what the bad guy was doing. I would never have thought in my life that I would have to try to figure out how to get permission to recall the resources sitting in the locker room. And that’s disappointing. We could spend $ 10,000 extra; “It’s a big deal,” Naugel said.
Spending so much money “to fit everyone in the backyard and have everything ready to work and not be needed” would simply send people home later, he said.
“It’s frustrating beyond the certainty that we haven’t tried, we haven’t tried at all, and I’ll tell anyone who wants to ask,” Nauggle said. “It bothers me incredibly.”
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