Many people knew about the fully marked replica of the armed man’s RCMP cruiser before using it in the Nova Scotia massacre, but did not report it to police based on various lies he told them about why he owned the vehicle and whether it was legal. .
New documents released on Monday by the commission conducting the public investigation into the April 18 and 19, 2020 shootings describe how gunman Gabriel Wortman created the cruiser’s spear, collected other police supplies such as uniforms and equipment, and who knows about them.
Records show that he told stories to neighbors, friends, strangers and patients at his dentistry clinic about how he used the vehicle’s replica as a “showcar” to honor fallen officers in parades as props in a film he was making. about the apocalypse and that he is a retired officer who wants to scare away thieves who may break into his houses.
The gunman may also have spoken directly to someone at RCMP Provincial Headquarters in 2019 about the cruiser’s reply, according to a person interviewed by the commission, but he was apparently told that such a vehicle would be illegal.
“He did not hide it; I can tell you that, “said Max Liberatore, a manager at the Federal Surplus Warehouse, where the attacker bought his decommissioned RCMP car, he told the Mass Victims Commission in an interview.
“Of course you don’t think he did what he did. That’s the last thing you’d ever think.”
But the field officers in Portapique, NS, who responded to the first hours of the massacre, those in command positions and 911 dispatchers did not seem to have these details immediately. They were left to struggle to find out what the witnesses meant, with the shooter in a police car.
During most of the riot that began in the small rural community and saw 22 killed, the 51-year-old dentist was driving a decommissioned police vehicle he bought through a federal government auction site on June 27, 2019. for $ 10,990.
According to the schedule drawn up by the commission, the armed man started searching online for police materials in January 2018.
This cruiser replica was one of three decommissioned Ford Taurus cars registered under the shooter’s company, the Berkshire Broman Corporation. There were two models from 2013 and the fully marked replica was 2017, but there was no license plate. A fourth Taurus from 2013 is not registered at all, according to the commission’s summary.
The remains of the Portapique of the shooter, NS, home and burnt shell of a Ford Taurus can be seen in May 2020 (Steve Lawrence / CBC)
When RCMP cars are retired by the police, they are stripped of all vinyl stickers and equipment in the surplus warehouses before being put up for auction, Liberatore said.
Liberator told the commission he knew the gunman had added stickers to one of the cars and created a cruiser model. When Liberator asked him why, the gunman said he planned to honor the three Monkton, NB officers who were killed by gunmen in 2014 by depicting them with stickers on the hood of the car.
“I said, ‘Oh, yes, that’s kind of cool,'” Liberator recalled, and the gunman added that he planned to use the vehicle in parades.
The gunman never tried to buy stickers through the surplus warehouse, Liberator said, and while talking about arms plans with other colleagues, he never passed the information through the federal government internally or reported it to the RCMP.
Liberator must speak before the investigation on Monday.
Photo of the replica of the RCMP cruiser of the shooter in his warehouse in Portapic, taken in December 2019 (Commission for Mass Victims)
Amanda Bird, a commission adviser, said Monday that there are federal and provincial laws that make it a crime to impersonate a police officer or use badges, uniforms or police equipment.
Nova Scotia’s new legislation, the Police Identity Management Act, is expected to take effect on May 12. Bird said it prohibits the sale, reproduction or possession of police-issued items by an individual or for someone else.
It also prevents the sale of branded police vehicles and restricts the possession of vehicle stickers and equipment to police vehicles to “authorized persons and uses,” Byrd said. The act makes it a crime to use or possess police supplies, with some exceptions such as movies, museums or exhibitions. The law also prohibits the sale or manufacture of police supplies unless the buyer is authorized.
In Nova Scotia, former RCMP vehicles are no longer sold after decommissioning and are instead stored or destroyed.
Model cruiser seen in the dealership
The shooter’s story in honor of the fallen officers, especially those killed in Moncton, was repeated to various people, including members of the family of the shooter’s partner, Lisa Banfield.
Although Banfield’s siblings and other family members doubted whether the fake cruiser was legal, the gunman assured them that he had checked with the “crown prosecutor” for its strict use for parades.
He told people who doubted the legitimacy of the remark that the police either knew about the car or that it didn’t matter because he didn’t actually drive it.
But some people actually saw the shooter drive the cruiser in the months before the massacre, including Bruce Gilmore, who worked at a Mercedes dealership in Halifax that ran one of the couple’s cars.
Gilmore said he saw the shooter take Banfield out of the dealership around the end of January 2020 in a marked cruiser. When Gilmore asked how he drove it legally, the gunman told him it was “just a hobby” and was “known” to be doing it.
“I thought it was the end of the story,” Gilmore told the committee. “If you have the green light to do it, it’s none of my business.
Looking back, Gilmore said he probably should have called the police to report the fake cruiser, but the gunman was a “pretty prominent man” in the Halifax area and “he never gave me reason not to trust him.” .
The gunman may have spoken to the RCMP
A few months before he saw Gilmore, a then-commissioner at RCMP headquarters in Nova Scotia met with the shooter. In a statement to police, Bob Dentremont said the shooter had gone to ask for the registration of a “mock police car”, but Dentremont told him he did not think it was allowed.
The gunman said he thought it might be because the Motor Vehicle Registry had told him the same thing, Dentremont told police.
Dentremont said he had recruited someone at headquarters who could be a senior sergeant, as is common practice, and handed the phone to the shooter.
“Whoever spoke at headquarters was definitely told no; this car cannot be registered as a fictitious police car, “Dentremont said, adding that the gunman said he wanted to hire the cruiser’s replica for movies.
The commission’s documents note that the senior sergeant will retire later in 2019, and an “additional report” will come later.
Twenty-two people died on April 18 and 19. Top row left: Gina Gulet, Dawn Gulenchin, Jolene 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)
In creating the replica, the shooter made some stickers through a sign shop in Truro, NS RCMP said that one of the store’s employees, Peter Griffon, printed the decals without the knowledge of his boss.
Gryphon was on parole in Portapic after serving a sentence for drug-related organized crime. The Canadian Parole Board found that he had initially lied to the RCMP about printing the stickers and sent him back to prison.
The gunman bought various accessories for the cruiser, such as a divider, decals, light tape and radar. Some were bought through Amazon or eBay, some bought through friends, and others were sent to a friend’s address in Maine, where the shooter would pick them up.
He also buys raw vinyl material, which can then be turned into stickers, including from Dartmouth, NS, a business called ND Graphics. Officer Angela Baker later told police she told the shooter she would not be able to drive the car after making it look like a copy of a cruiser – he agreed it would be “illegal” and said is for display only.
RCMP, dispatchers confused by the description of the police car
In the first hour of the massacre, when a gunman shot neighbors in their homes in Portapik and set fire to buildings, many witnesses told RCMP or 911 officials that someone in a marked “police car” was shooting at people.
But the first three RCMP officers, who joined the community on April 18, 2020, testified that they never imagined that the shooter could have an authentic-looking police cruiser. They thought it was probably an older model that had been unmarked.
Sgt. Brian Rehill, the RCMP’s risk manager on duty, also said in a call at 10:32 p.m. that night, “They say someone in a police car is shooting at people and we can’t kill them.” But we don’t think it’s a police car. ”
A 911 dispatcher from the Truro Operations Communication Center also told an RCMP officer, asking about the police car at around 11pm, that “we still can’t get to the bottom of this.”
As Ford Taurus cars were not registered in the name of the attacker, for the first few hours the police did not know exactly how many he had.
But they had a record: Const. Nick Dorington convicted the driver of speeding in February 2020, took a photo of his driver’s license and noted that he was driving an unmarked white 2013 Ford Taurus with a license plate.
Shortly after midnight, Dorington pulled out a photo of the shooter and a Taurus license plate, which he shared with police. But he did not share the name of the company under which the car is registered.
The documents of the commission say “unknown” …
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