Shooting in Nova Scotia

[TygerLily]

I read that it wasn't possible to get in touch with the highest level personnel required to send out that alert.

Do you remember the source of that? I've been trying to comprehend this awful decision and haven't personally seen that in the news coverage or press conferences.


Edit:

I don't know if tonight's tribute will be available after the fact, but someone captured the duet Natalie McMaster did with the video of Emily Tuck (17). https://twitter.com/sweetpeach996/status/1253817343328821251

 

[skatingguy]

I don't know if tonight's tribute will be available after the fact, but someone captured the duet Natalie McMaster did with the video of Emily Tuck (17). https://twitter.com/sweetpeach996/status/1253817343328821251

Full video of the tribute.

 

[victorskid]

Do you remember the source of that? I've been trying to comprehend this awful decision and haven't personally seen that in the news coverage or press conferences.


Edit:

I don't know if tonight's tribute will be available after the fact, but someone captured the duet Natalie McMaster did with the video of Emily Tuck (17). https://twitter.com/sweetpeach996/status/1253817343328821251

In a press conference about the alert, it was said that time was lost in connecting the technicians from the Emergency Management Organization (EMO) who contacted the RCMP communications centre with the various folks necessary (up the chain of command/on site) but that the alert was being crafted when they happened upon the suspect and he was shot.

Natalie's segment with Emily brought many folks to tears - it was especially touching to think how proud she and her (late) parents would have been to have her perform with Natalie

 

[Mozart]

My cousin's husband is a RCMP officer in that area and was out there that night. He basically was out until wednesday. He already was suffering from ptsd now this. They put him on duty visiting the families after Wednesday and let's just say that it wasn't easy.

 

[misskarne]

There will be a news conference at 10 am EST. Journalists are finally discussing the domestic violence aspect of this: https://globalnews.ca/news/6858994/nova-scotia-shootings-gunman-attacked-girlfriend/

Of course. Of course it was. Somehow I'm not surprised.

 

[skatingguy]

The narrative that seems to be emerging is that he handcuffed his girlfriend, beat her up, and then she found a way to escape. She spent the night in the woods hiding, and he started going house to house shooting people, and starting fires. There's also some evidence that this was long planned, so it's hard to know if he lost it when the girlfriend got away, or if she was just supposed to be the first victim.

 

[SkateSand]

The original attack seems like it was triggered by a domestic dispute, but I wonder if the fact that his business was closed down due to the virus may have contributed. If the virus did not exist and his business was functioning, would this have happened? We'll never really know, but I chalk it up to yet another calamity related to the virus.

 

[overedge]

FRANK, a news/gossip magazine published in Halifax, has posted part of an interview with the gunman's father. Unfortunately it's paywalled, but the gist of the information from the father is that several years ago, the gunman was talking on the phone with a cousin in Alberta and out of the blue announced that he was going to drive over to his parents' house and shoot them. The parents already knew that he had a lot of guns.

The cousin phoned the parents, who phoned the RCMP. The RCMP went over to the gunman's house, and he told them, no, I never said anything like that, I don't have any guns, they made it all up. The father says in the interview something to the effect of, of course he said that, why would he tell them it was true? And that was as far as it ever went. The RCMP didn't even follow up with the parents.

The next part of the interview, according to the post, involves an incident when the gunman, his girlfriend, and the parents went on a holiday in Cuba which the gunman paid for - during which he flew into a rage and beat his dad until the dad was unconscious

 

[skategal]

FRANK, a news/gossip magazine published in Halifax, has posted part of an interview with the gunman's father. Unfortunately it's paywalled, but the gist of the information from the father is that several years ago, the gunman was talking on the phone with a cousin in Alberta and out of the blue announced that he was going to drive over to his parents' house and shoot them. The parents already knew that he had a lot of guns.

The cousin phoned the parents, who phoned the RCMP. The RCMP went over to the gunman's house, and he told them, no, I never said anything like that, I don't have any guns, they made it all up. The father says in the interview something to the effect of, of course he said that, why would he tell them it was true? And that was as far as it ever went. The RCMP didn't even follow up with the parents.

The next part of the interview, according to the post, involves an incident when the gunman, his girlfriend, and the parents went on a holiday in Cuba which the gunman paid for - during which he flew into a rage and beat his dad until the dad was unconscious

Sadly, this doesn’t surprise me in the least.

No one goes from regular nice guy to psychopathic killer overnight.

 

[liv]

Just a sad story all around. I feel for Nova Scotia and the families/friends etc....

I feel badly for the girlfriend who was able to escape and run into the woods to hide... knowing that you might be the spark that set off this inferno, how she must feel... I hope she's alright....but he was obviously disturbed and clearly set on this path for a long time, just waiting for the right time (in his mind, anyway).

 

[overedge]

Today FRANK has named the girlfriend. She also worked as the assistant in the gunman's denturist office. Her family told FRANK she was recovering but that she wanted to "leave the past in the past" and didn't want to speak to the media.

 

[skatingguy]

Today FRANK has named the girlfriend. She also worked as the assistant in the gunman's denturist office. Her family told FRANK she was recovering but that she wanted to "leave the past in the past" and didn't want to speak to the media.

I hope that one day she will be willing to speak about her experience, though its completely understandable if she doesn't, and, in particular, that she's not ready to speak to the media right now. I think it could help a lot of people to understand what happened, and these sort of stories can have an impact on the lives of others dealing with similar situations.

 

[misskarne]

I feel badly for the girlfriend who was able to escape and run into the woods to hide... knowing that you might be the spark that set off this inferno, how she must feel... I hope she's alright....but he was obviously disturbed and clearly set on this path for a long time, just waiting for the right time (in his mind, anyway).

I've been hating this since the moment it came out, and too many of the headlines are being written in a way that blames her too. It's not her fault. She shouldn't be being labelled as the catalyst or the spark or the cause. If anything, she probably saved more lives because of her brave actions. She shouldn't be blamed for the actions of her abuser. It's not her fault.

 

[skatingguy]

I've been hating this since the moment it came out, and too many of the headlines are being written in a way that blames her too. It's not her fault. She shouldn't be being labelled as the catalyst or the spark or the cause. If anything, she probably saved more lives because of her brave actions. She shouldn't be blamed for the actions of her abuser. It's not her fault.

I haven't seen anyone say that, and I haven't seen that angle from any of the coverage, but I'm sure she's blaming herself. Survivor's guilt is real.

 

[genevieve]

The next part of the interview, according to the post, involves an incident when the gunman, his girlfriend, and the parents went on a holiday in Cuba which the gunman paid for - during which he flew into a rage and beat his dad until the dad was unconscious

Wait, was that before or after the gunman threatened to kill his parents?

I am so sorry for all the lives that have been lost or harmed due to this maniac.

 

[overedge]

I haven't seen anyone say that, and I haven't seen that angle from any of the coverage, but I'm sure she's blaming herself. Survivor's guilt is real.

The Washington Post was getting a lot of flak on its site for this headline. Some people interpreted it as, if she hadn't made him mad, then the rest of it wouldn't have happened.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/canadas-deadliest-shooting-rampage-began-with-an-argument-between-the-gunman-and-his-girlfriend-police-say/2020/04/24/fe3361e6-8636-11ea-81a3-9690c9881111_story.html

 

[overedge]

Wait, was that before or after the gunman threatened to kill his parents?

I am so sorry for all the lives that have been lost or harmed due to this maniac.

The story just says "years earlier". I'm not sure if it means years before he threatened to kill them, or years before what happened last weekend.

 

[Judy]

I hope that one day she will be willing to speak about her experience, though its completely understandable if she doesn't, and, in particular, that she's not ready to speak to the media right now. I think it could help a lot of people to understand what happened, and these sort of stories can nave an impact on the lives of others dealing with similar situations.

Just a horrible thing to do to this woman. It is not difficult to understand she was in an abusive relationship for years and then went through a horrifying ordeal last weekend.

 

[Japanfan]

In that case, one should go above that level, unless we are talking about the Commissioner here...

I expect because the RCMP is a large bureaucracy they will do the opposite, add more layers of approval for ass-covering.

I agree that there should be a chain of command available 24/7 to deal with crises. The response to this situation was not acceptable - an alert should have been sent out much sooner.

I expect the RCMP will be looking at the situation closely to see what they need to do in order to be better prepared for something like this. And, that some officers' heads are going to

 

[Japanfan]

Do you remember the source of that? I've been trying to comprehend this awful decision and haven't personally seen that in the news coverage or press conferences.

CTV news. I tried googling, but didn't find it.

Now a subscription is needed to read the Globe and Mail.

 

[skatingguy]

Just a horrible thing to do to this woman. It is not difficult to understand she was in an abusive relationship for years and then went through a horrifying ordeal last weekend.

Her story, in her own voice, when she is ready to tell it could be a powerful message for someone else in a similar situation. It could also help the families of the other victims understand what happened as they try to come to terms with the murder of their loved ones. I think there are many aspects of what happened that are not well understood at this time.

 

[skatingguy]

The Washington Post was getting a lot of flak on its site for this headline. Some people interpreted it as, if she hadn't made him mad, then the rest of it wouldn't have happened.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/canadas-deadliest-shooting-rampage-began-with-an-argument-between-the-gunman-and-his-girlfriend-police-say/2020/04/24/fe3361e6-8636-11ea-81a3-9690c9881111_story.html

I don't have a subscription to The Post so I can't read the article, but the headline seems like a simple factual statement. One of the things we don't yet know about the sequence of events is whether he planned to go on a killing spree when he was finished with the girlfriend, or whether her escape precipitated the killings. We know that he had a list of people that he wanted to target, and some of his victims were on that list but others were simply bystanders, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. One thing that is clear is that none of this was her fault, and she did what she was supposed to do. She survived.

 

[Judy]

I agree that there should be a chain of command available 24/7 to deal with crises. The response to this situation was not acceptable - an alert should have been sent out much sooner.

I expect the RCMP will be looking at the situation closely to see what they need to do in order to be better prepared for something like this. And, that some officers' heads are going to

For sure they will be examining it. The fact that he was dressed aspolice and in a police car ... welcome to a nightmare. There couldn’t be a worse situation than that.

 

[TygerLily]

In a press conference about the alert, it was said that time was lost in connecting the technicians from the Emergency Management Organization (EMO) who contacted the RCMP communications centre with the various folks necessary (up the chain of command/on site) but that the alert was being crafted when they happened upon the suspect and he was shot.

CTV news. I tried googling, but didn't find it.

Now a subscription is needed to read the Globe and Mail.

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:

Tom Bagley was on the phone with his daughter before he left the house for his Sunday morning walk, a bit ahead of 9 a.m. Heather O'Brien sent her family a final group chat message at 9:59 a.m. And Kristen Beaton was texting back and forth with her husband almost right up to the moment she was killed, not long after 10 a.m.

All three were in close contact with loved ones early on April 19, heading about their business as usual, and completely unaware of the danger that lurked nearby — a killer stalking the province disguised as a police officer.

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.

I agree that there should be a chain of command available 24/7 to deal with crises. The response to this situation was not acceptable - an alert should have been sent out much sooner.

I expect the RCMP will be looking at the situation closely to see what they need to do in order to be better prepared for something like this. And, that some officers' heads are going to

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.

 

[victorskid]

I believe that there will likely be a full public inquiry into the events of April 18 & 19th, perhaps including some of the circumstances that might have led up to them as well. I fully understand everyone's reactions but I think it would be wise to not jump to any conclusions at this time, especially based on incomplete facts as we believe we know them.

The Commissioner of the RCMP has already admitted publicly that it is possible that some lives might have been saved by an alert.

It was all unprecedented and horrific.

I "happened upon" a reference to something going on in my home province early on Sunday morning and quickly added the RCMP NS to those I follow on Twitter so I "saw" much of the last 4 hours of activity as posted there.

 

[Former Lurve Goddess]

Re the gap in time, reading between the lines of this article in the Globe today with an officer who was on the scene, I think the RCMP mistakenly believe the assailant had committed suicide and was "contained." It was only in the morning when they found the surviving girlfriend did they realize that might not be the case. It sounds like a perfect storm of awfulness.

 

[Judy]

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.

Totally understand how you are feeling. Yes there are gaps,but it’s always necessary to protect the investigation. It’s always human nature to want to know everything. I feel that too. i Married into a police family - not RCMP. But I get that we have to wait. Much love to Nova Scotia.

 

[overedge]

I saw a mention somewhere, possibly in the Globe and Mail, that only 10% of people in Nova Scotia have a Twitter account. Which makes the decision not to send out an emergency alert via mobile phones even more unbelievable.

 

[liv]

I haven't seen anyone say that, and I haven't seen that angle from any of the coverage, but I'm sure she's blaming herself. Survivor's guilt is real.

I haven't seen anyone blaming her either, and they should not. He was already headed down that path. She might intellectually know that it wasn't her fault, that he was already disturbed, but that feeling of guilt just might be there anyway, no matter how many times people will tell her otherwise. And she might even feel like she should have known that he was capable of this, and should have done something more. Obviously nothing about this is her fault, I"m just guessing at how she might be feeling based on what I would probably feel....

 

[DreamSkates]

So sad to hear this. You see minimal of this in Canada because of strict gun regulations. It also hit home because my Grandparents were born in Nova Scotia.