Thank you for trying to help me find the source, both of you. None of the following is specifically directed at either of you.
I've reread and watched as much as I can handle, including a
Maclean's transcript (partially paraphrased?) of the RCMP statement and the journalists' Q&A (
full video), and I still don't understand the 13-hour gap between the witness telling RCMP that the suspect was driving what appeared to be an RCMP vehicle (sometime after 10:26 p.m. Saturday) and when the emergency alert was going to be ready to go out (sometime after 11:26 a.m. Sunday).
While I can understand the strain everyone was under, I don't think Friday's explanation is enough or at all acceptable. Apparently they spent all night
assuming that a suspected murderer would register all of his RCMP replica vehicles (only 3 of 4 had license plates) and
believing that their perimeter was so impenetrable that there was no need to notify the public of the possible danger.
This CBC article better expresses how I feel than I can and echos my initial reaction to the press conference when it says, "Supt. Darren Campbell, the officer in charge of support services for the RCMP in Nova Scotia,
tried to address the information gap during Friday's press briefing" (para. 14, emphasis mine). The article's opening paragraphs demonstrate that an emergency alert could have helped save people, and further on in the article family/friends criticize the lack of emergency alert:
This CTV article highlights the large gaps between when they "confirmed" (not discovered) that the suspect was disguised as RCMP, when they notified people through Twitter of all places, and the end of the standoff:
- "He said police did not confirm that their suspect was in a replica police cruiser or wearing a uniform until they interviewed his girlfriend after 6:30 a.m. Sunday when she called 911" (para. 15, emphasis mine).
- "Those new timeline details confirm that multiple victims died within the more than two-hour gap between when police learned of Wortman’s police uniform and lookalike RCMP cruisers from his girlfriend — a time police have estimated between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. — and the time they warned the public of the disguise via Twitter at 10:21 a.m." ("The Timeline" section, para. 4)
A friend's spouse is an RCMP officer, so I'm usually overly inclined to accept the RCMP narrative, and I know people like Mozart's cousin are not at fault here. But I have dear friends, their family, my spouse's dear friends, and various acquaintances who live along the routes he took Sunday morning. At least one was driving those highways Sunday morning and didn't understand why there was so much police presence. Another, who was at home in the area, only learned what was going on shortly before it was over -- through word of mouth not Twitter -- so would have had no reason not to open the door to an RCMP officer had the killer knocked. I'm personally lucky that I'm 2-3 degrees of separation away from victims and that my immediate family members who often work in that area weren't there that morning, but others are not so lucky. I just can't even imagine how they, especially those whose loved ones were murdered Sunday morning, can ever understand why an emergency alert couldn't be written and approved sometime closer to 10:26 p.m. or even 8 a.m.
100% this. I literally cried with relief (okay and fear) when the emergency alert went out on Friday because it felt like the RCMP and province had at least learned from the mistake. I know people can be testy over what they feel are unnecessary emergency alerts (911 in Ontario gets an obnoxious number of calls complaining about Amber Alerts), but I'd rather a false alert than none.
