The RCMP has claimed it did its best in trying to deal with the Nova
Scotia mass killer on the weekend of April 18 and 19, but a
reconstruction of events by the Halifax Examiner strongly suggests that
the police force made no attempt to save lives by confronting the gunman
or stopping his spree at any point.
“Public safety and preservation of life are the primary duties of any
peace officer,” said a former high ranking RCMP executive officer who
asked for anonymity out of fear of retaliation by current and former law
enforcement officials who are vigilant about any criticism of policing
by those in the field. “As far as I can tell, the RCMP did nothing in
Nova Scotia to save a life. They weren’t ready. It is embarrassing to
me. The entire thing was an epic failure.”
Based upon interviews with other current and former police officers,
witnesses, and law enforcement, and on emergency services transcripts,
it seems clear that there was a collapse of the policing function on
that weekend.
At no point in the two-day rampage did the RCMP get in front of the
killer, who the Examiner identifies as GW. It also seems apparent that
some Mounties, many of whom were called in from distant locales, were
stunningly unaware of the geography and landmarks in the general area as
the RCMP tried to keep up with GW.
Sources within the RCMP say a major problem was that communications
between various RCMP units was never co-ordinated. “Everyone was on
their own channels,” the source said. “Nothing was synchronized. They
could have gone to a single channel and brought in the municipal cops as
well, but for some reason they didn’t. It was like no one was in
charge.”
Nova Scotia RCMP’s chief investigative officer, Chris Leather. Photo: Halifax Examiner.
RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather said in the days after the incident,
that the RCMP was responding to a “dynamic and fluid” situation. “The
fact that this individual had a uniform and a police car at his disposal
certainly speaks to it not being a random act,” he said.
RCMP Support Services Officer Darren Campbell
In the days and weeks after the shootings, RCMP spokespersons
repeatedly portrayed the gunman as a clever, psychotic criminal who had
conceived what was essentially a brilliant plan to dupe police and evade
capture. This subtly changed in an interview with the CBC earlier this
month when Supt. Darren Campbell said: “There’s been no evidence that he
was pre-planning [the mass shooting].”
As chaotic as the situation might have been for the RCMP, it is
evident that the force failed to contain the shooter on the evening of
April 18 at the initial multiple crime scenes in the Portapique Beach
area of Central Nova Scotia. Thirteen people were murdered that night in
which might well be called the first massacre. As has already been
acknowledged, the RCMP did not set up roadblocks and perimeters around
the area, even though it knew within minutes of arriving at the scene
that the shooter was armed and likely on the loose in a replica Mountie
police vehicle.
On April 19, the second massacre took place. Unlike the night before,
the RCMP knew beforehand who the suspect was, how he was dressed, and
what kind of vehicle he was driving, a replica RCMP vehicle. The RCMP
had sightings of the killer that morning, but again inexplicably did not
seal off roads and highways and try to contain him after numerous 911
calls about sightings. Nine more people, including RCMP constable Heidi
Stevenson, were murdered that day.
Preservation of human life is generally accepted to be the ultimate
duty of all law enforcement officers in critical incident management. In
basic training all Canadian police officers are taught to understand
that when confronted with a life-threatening situation, the “priority of
life” is demonstrated in this order: hostages, innocent by-standers,
police/first responders, and suspects.
The RCMP has said that officers who responded to the original
incident employed a tactic known as Immediate Action Rapid Deployment
(IARD). With such training,
as well-described on-line, the first responding officers are authorized to be proactive and disrupt a crime before criminals become “active shooters.”
“We are taught to move past injured victims and attack the
situation,” said one current RCMP member. “If the suspect is in a
building, we use a
T formation. If he’s outdoors, it’s a
diamond.
You typically need four officers, but, if need be, you can do it with
fewer. The point is to neutralize the suspect as quickly as possible and
prevent further injuries or deaths.”
In spite of what the RCMP has publicly stated, law enforcement
sources and others have told the Examiner that the first RCMP responders
did not actively intervene after arriving at the scene. After
discovering a considerable number of slain victims around a property and
on or near the road, the officers retreated to a point near the top of
Portapique Beach Road where they congregated to wait for reinforcements.
Several RCMP and law enforcement sources say that a corporal from a
nearby detachment who was the initial supervisor on the scene froze in
place to the distress of other Mounties. The corporal later ran into
nearby woods and turned off their flashlight and hid. That officer
continues to be off work on stress leave.
Some veteran Mounties say that there were likely a number of factors which caused the first Mounties on the scene to hesitate.
“It could have been inexperience. Maybe there was no backup. And then
there’s always that Canada Labour Code thing,” said one long time
Mountie.
He was referring to a $550,000 fine imposed on the RCMP in January
2018 for failing to properly arm and train its members after three
Mounties were murdered and two injured in a shooting rampage in Moncton
on June 4, 2014. Since the Labor Code decision, all RCMP members on
patrol are trained in the use assault weapons. Every Mountie carries a
Colt C8 rifle with a 30-shot magazine in their patrol cars. The
high-powered gun is considered to be an upgrade to the American made
AR-15.
“They were in a bad situation,” said the Mountie. ”Their duty is to
save lives, but whoever the supervisor was, he or she might have been
thinking that they could be criminally sanctioned and go to jail if they
send officers into a life threatening situation. At the very least, it
could be the end of their career. That’s how the Labour Code fine is
interpreted, even if the police are supposed to be exempt from it in the
performance of their duties.”
Others have suggested that the RCMP called what has become to be known in policing circles as a
FIDO —
Fuck
it, drive on. What that means is that police deliberately avoid
dangerous situations and delay or wait until everything has calmed down
before making a move.
Within an hour or so after the first call came in, Staff-Sergeant
Allan Carroll took over as the officer-in-charge at a command centre set
up in the RCMP detachment at Bible Hill. Sources say that Carroll did
not attend the scene and it is not known precisely what he did or didn’t
do.
It is noteworthy that his son, Jordan, an RCMP constable, was the
second officer to arrive at the scene in Portapique. A knowledgeable
source told the Examiner that Staff-Sgt. Carroll retired from the force
three weeks ago. A party was held on June 27.
As the Mounties maintained their static position at Portapique Beach
Road, tensions were rising. “It was a shit show,” one Mountie said.
Some of the frustrated Mounties wanted to follow their training, move
forward and attack the situation. A RCMP tactical officer from Cole
Harbour who was called to the scene became frustrated with the fact the
Mounties were not attempting to move from their fixed position, save
lives and possibly confront the killer. When that Mountie and another
said they were going to do it on their own, an unknown supervisor told
them: “If you go down there this will be your last shift in the RCMP.”
The Mounties held their position.
The RCMP has refused to release its own communications from that
night or transcripts of them, but interviews with and transcripts of
communications from the nearby Truro Police Department and Emergency
Medical Services along with other already noted sources helps fill in
some of the gaps and paint a picture of the chaos inside the RCMP.
In the days after the shootings, the RCMP gave three different
versions of how long it took the force to respond to the first 911 call
which was at 10:01 p.m. First it said officers were on the scene in 12
minutes. On April 21, the RCMP said the first call came in at 10:30 p.m.
The next day this was corrected to the call coming in at 10:01 p.m with
the first Mounties arriving on the scene at 10:36 p.m.
A local man was driving out of Portapique Beach Road when the killer
in his replica cruiser approached him from the other direction and shot
at him in his vehicle, wounding him in the arm. According to search
warrant documents obtained by the Examiner, that man told investigators
he drove up the road and met the cordon of Mounties waiting there.
Police sources tell us that the man told Mounties that a man he believed
was GW was in a marked police car had shot at him. This occurred
sometime after 10:26 p.m. and before 10:35 p.m. when the vehicle was
seen leaving the area driving across a field to Brown Loop which is
about 200 metres to the east of where the police were positioned.
That man’s report is the first time, as far as we know, that the RCMP were aware that GW was in a recognizable police vehicle.
At or around 10:45 p.m., the killer and his vehicle later are
identified as passing by a residence on his way to Debert where he
arrived at 11:12 p.m. He parked his car behind a welding shop. He stayed
there for six hours.
Until midnight, the fires raged but the RCMP held back the fire
department. At least two people were hiding in the woods. One was
Clinton Ellison, who had found his brother, Corrie, dead on the road and
was stalked by the killer who was using a flashlight to try to find
Ellison. The other was GW’s girlfriend, who later said she escaped being
handcuffed in the back of another former police vehicle and ran into
the woods where she reportedly stayed until 6:30 a.m.
The RCMP put out its first alert to the public
on Twitter
at 11:32 p.m. It read: “#RCMPNS remains on scene in #Portapique. This
is an active shooter situation. Residents in the area, stay inside your
homes & lock your doors. Call 911 if there is anyone on your
property. You may not see the police but we are there with you
#Portapique.”
The RCMP did not alert the two municipal police forces on either side
of Portapique, in Truro, 20 minutes away, and Amherst, 45 minutes away.
This is significant because in both police forces most of the members
have tactical training, a necessity in small departments where any
officer could find themselves in a difficult incident without much or
any notice. Both police forces had considerable numbers of officers
primed and ready to go.
On the Truro Police communications log, at midnight the department
received a call from someone at Colchester Regional Hospital reporting
that they have a gunshot victim from Portapique and advised that the
hospital is in lockdown.
Truro Police Sgt. Rick Hickox called the RCMP six minutes later at 12:06 a.m. looking for an update.
The RCMP returned his call 49 minutes later at 12:55 a.m. to inform
the Truro police of an active shooter in Portapique, although GW was
long gone from that area.
Three minutes later at 12:58 a.m.: “RCMP dispatch calls advises
shooter is associated to a former police car possibly with a decal on
it.”
Nine minutes later at 1:07 a.m. the RCMP issued a BOLO (Be on the
lookout) for GW as an active shooter and suspect. The RCMP “ID’s some
vehicles and girlfriend who is unaccounted for.”
At 1:07 a.m., therefore, the RCMP clearly knew the identity of the
suspect and that he had killed many people. The RCMP was not sure about
how many because the fires were still raging. Yet the RCMP advised
police departments outside the scene to look for this incredibly
dangerous person but did not themselves or ask anyone to put up
roadblocks and lock down the area. Most importantly, in its tweets the
RCMP fudged the markings on the car. The local man who was shot by GW
told them it was a police car. The RCMP described it as a former police
car with a Canada decal on it. Why the obfuscation?
Informed sources close to the investigation say it was around this
time that that an Amherst Police officer was told that the RCMP did not
need that force’s assistance because the Mounties had deemed the
situation to be a murder-suicide and that the shooter was dead. Amherst
Police Chief Dwayne Pike denied in an interview that such a conversation
took place. When told about the chief’s denial, the original source
persisted in his claim. “Municipal forces like Amherst depend upon the
RCMP for lab services,” the source said. “They don’t want to say
anything to piss off the Mounties because they will cut them off from
the labs. That would cost the locals a lot of money. The RCMP plays
rough and the local forces know it, so they keep their mouths shut.”
Chief Pike said recently in an email response from the Examiner that
his force was still putting together a timeline of the force’s
involvement that weekend.
Back at Portapique Beach, the RCMP continued its investigations at
the multiple crime sites. It obtained a search warrant for the killer’s
properties at 200 and 287 Portapique Beach Road and 136 Orchard Beach
Drive. In the search warrants it cited human remains as one of the
things they were looking for.
The RCMP remained silent until 4:12 a.m., when it told Truro police
about a Ford F150 truck associated to the suspect. Two minutes later at
4:14 a.m. it updated Truro about another vehicle. Ten minutes later at
4:24 a.m., the RCMP provides a list of vehicles the killer may be
driving and noted:
“… he is
still not in custody.” The RCMP didn’t know where the killer was. They
knew he had killed about a dozen people by that time (some victims had
not yet been located). But the force did not send out a provincial alert
or set up roadblocks around the greater area.
In its communications the RCMP seemed to be suggesting that it was
searching for GW, dead or alive, but it still has not done anything
proactive to preserve life by obstructing his possible paths, if he were
still alive.
In the overnight hours the RCMP says it was busy clearing the various
crime scenes in the Portapique Beach area. It is not clear how many
Mounties were at the scene or where they came from, although some
eventually were called in from New Brunswick. The RCMP has not been
clear about any of this, stating that at times there were 30 members
there and eventually “100 resources,” whatever that entails. Transfixed
as it seemed to be with the nightmarish crime scenes, the force seemed
to have put the notion that the killer was alive out of his collective
thoughts. No one seems to know what he was doing in Debert.
Some police sources have suggested that GW was perhaps in touch with
the RCMP during this period. It is known that a RCMP crisis negotiator
was on the scene in Portapique, but Supt. Campbell denied to the CBC in
an unpublished interview that the force had any contact with the killer
during the overnight period.
While the RCMP was putting out BOLOs as perhaps a hedge, by its
actions over the next few hours, the force seemed to be convinced that
shooter was no longer a threat. By 6:30 a.m. many of the Mounties on the
scene at Portapique, including the staff-sergeant from Bible Hill, were
allowed to go home after a long, gruelling night.
Informed sources say that a new incident commander was scheduled to arrive at the scene at 10 a.m., possibly from “the Valley.”
In the interim, the RCMP put out
a tweet at 8:02 a.m. reiterating that a shooter was still active in the Portapique area. This made the Truro police anxious.
Corporal
Ed Cormier immediately called the RCMP at 8:03 a.m. looking for an
update. Four minutes later, at 8:07 a.m., the RCMP responded with an
updated BOLO, elaborating on their tweet:
“[GW]
arrestable for homicide. Advises of a fully marked RCMP car Ford
Taurus. Could be anywhere in the province. Last seen loading firearms in
vehicle. Vehicle photo will be sent when available.”
This information reportedly came from the killer’s girlfriend, who
apparently came out of the woods at 6:30 a.m. However, this BOLO
provided not much more information than the one at 12:58 a.m., five and a
half hours earlier.
It added
the firearms, but any reader had to presume that GW had firearms in the
earlier BOLO since he was described as a “shooter.”
Still, while telling other police agencies that GW “could be anywhere
in the province,” so far as the public was told, GW was still in
Portapique.
And the RCMP did not engage the local municipal police forces in
Truro, Amherst, the New Glasgow area or even Halifax, an hour away.
There are more than 900 Mounties employed in Nova Scotia in various
capacities. Only a relative few of them were called in. The Mounties,
however, did enlist the help of RCMP members in New Brunswick from
Moncton and as far away as Fredericton, a three-hour drive at speed from
Portapique.
One
of four H125 helicopters used by the Nova Scotia Department of Natural
Resources. Photo: Communications Nova Scotia (CNW Group/Airbus)
Some expert police observers have said in interviews that the
attempts to locate the killer and pursue him would have benefited from
the use of a helicopter but the RCMP does not employ a helicopter in
Nova Scotia. No helicopter was employed during the overnight hours, as
well, to conduct a search.
“The RCMP has nine helicopters across the country, but as far as I
know has never had one in Nova Scotia,” said a former executive level
RCMP officer in an interview. “In renewing its contracts with the RCMP,
it appears that the government of Nova Scotia has taken the position
that a helicopter is an unneeded frill and dispensed with the idea. That
was a big mistake. The questionable leadership of the RCMP and the
questionable leadership of the government of Nova Scotia has failed to
appreciate the changing dynamics of policing. The force needed a
helicopter that weekend and didn’t have one. Twenty-two people died.
Some of those lives could have been saved.”
Until 2001, the RCMP had an agreement with the provincial Department of Natural Resources, which commands
four helicopters.
In return, informed sources say, the DNR was allowed to use the RCMP’s
forensic laboratories. The RCMP denied that use in 2001, so the DNR
stopped allowing the RCMP the use of the helicopters.
In the intervening 19 years, whenever the RCMP required the use of a
helicopter it either negotiated with the armed forces or it paid private
rental companies for one.
The relaxed attitude of the RCMP in the early morning hours of Sunday
was evidenced in a video shot by CBC at the RCMP command centre at the
firehall in Great Village. Emergency response team members stand in a
circle chatting away. A bored Mountie wielding a C8 rifle paces back and
forth. Another Mountie helps local fire-fighters roll up some hose.
After this, things began to get even hairier.
An
RCMP map shows GW’s route from 123 Ventura Drive in Debert to 2328
Hunter Road, Wentworth. Insets of still images taken from different
videos show GW’s replica police car at 5:43am in Debert and passing a
driveway on Hunter Road in Wentworth at 6:29am.
At 5:45 a.m. surveillance cameras record GW leaving the Debert
Industrial Park as he began the 40-kilometre drive to Hunter Road in
Wentworth. He is believed to have arrived at the house of Sean McLeod
and Alanna Jenkins at around 6:30 a.m. McLeod and Jenkins were
apparently murdered in their beds. McLeod’s two dogs were also killed.
GW killed neighbour Tom Bagley who had come to investigate.
For some unknown reason, the killer lingered at the McLeod property
for three hours. At some point he set the house on fire and left at 9:35
a.m. according to a security camera. It is not yet known what he was
doing while he lingered there.
Lillian Hyslop. Photo: Facebook.
At 9:43 a.m., the Truro police were notified by the RCMP about “a
dead woman in Wentworth on the road. Advises RCMP car was seen in the
area and there was a loud bang.”
The
killer had shot retiree Lillian Hyslop who was out for her morning
walk, unaware that he was in the area because an alert has just been
issued as she left the house.
The RCMP flooded the area and thought it had the killer contained,
even though callers to 911 had told them that he had been seen heading
eastbound on Highway 4 toward Truro. Thinking it had the killer trapped,
the RCMP again failed to mobilize in an attempt to find, stop or
capture him. As it had in Portapique, the RCMP did not call for help
from other forces, did not set up roadblocks, call for a helicopter or
track, contain or attack GW.
Instead of calling in local police for help, the Mounties relied on
their own, some from far away who were entirely unfamiliar with the
territory and couldn’t find roads. One couldn’t find the RCMP building
in Bible Hill just outside Truro. Another indicated to a Truro police
dispatcher that he didn’t realize that there was a hospital in Truro.
Further evidence of the communications disconnect between Mounties
and their commanders and between Mounties and other police forces was
how messages about what was going on in Wentworth were disseminated.
At 9:46 a.m., a RCMP officer at the Colchester Regional Hospital told
Truro Constable Cormier that the force believed it had the killer
pinned down in Wentworth. Two minutes later Truro Constable Thomas
Whidden reported that that he had heard informally from the RCMP that
the killer was headed to Truro. The RCMP was not formally engaging the
Truro Police.
Then, at 10 a.m., RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather, the number two
Mountie in the province and the chief of criminal operations, further
added to the ball of confusion. He sent an e-mail to Truro Police Chief
Dave McNeil that the RCMP had the shooter pinned down in Wentworth. But
that wasn’t true. What Leather later told reporters is that he had meant
to Onslow, 30 kilometres to the south of Wentworth, an 8-minute or so
drive west of Truro.
By now the killer was heading back to the Debert area where he had
spent the overnight parked behind a garage in the industrial park.
Despite the fact that 13 people had been murdered, just west of there in
Portapique, there were still no roadblocks or impediments to his
travel.
At 9:48 a.m., GW visited the house of a couple he knew who lived on
the 2900 block of Highway 4, in Debert, just north of the intersection
with Highway 104. The couple hid under their bed, a gun cocked and
ready. The killer backed off and continued moving south. GW left without
harming them, and the couple called 911.
At 10:04 a.m. the RCMP sent out
a tweet
asking people to avoid the Hidden Hilltop Campground in Glenholme,
which is near the couple’s home. But GW wasn’t there. He had moved on to
Plains Road in Debert, where he killed Heather O’Brien and Kristen
Beaton, two Victorian Order of Nurses who were driving in separate cars.
The RCMP later said that the killer pulled them over and later still
corrected that statement, saying he hadn’t. The force has yet not
explained what really happened.
Near Onslow, the killer passed a Mountie who was driving the other
way. The unnamed Mountie thinking that he had just seen the suspect is
reported to have turned around to pursue him, but lost sight of the
killer. There was no RCMP back up in the area.
Although the killer had been spotted,
the
RCMP did not issue a province wide alert or take any action to impede
or stop the killer with the ultimate intention of preserving life.
The killer then headed to Truro where he drove down Walker,
Esplanade, and Willow streets between 10:16 and 10:19 a.m. and then
headed south out of town toward Brookfield. The Truro police were
entirely unaware that he had done that until video surfaced later that
week.
Meanwhile, the RCMP finally had negotiated the use of a helicopter
from the Department of Natural Resources. A source close to the DNR said
that department was told that the helicopter would be used to scout the
Portapique Beach Road fire scenes to ensure that the fires had not
spread into the woods. The helicopter with a Mountie on board took off
for Portapique. The pilot was never instructed to hunt for the killer in
his readily identifiable mock RCMP cruiser — it was the only one on the
road in the area that featured a push bar or ram package over its front
bumper.
Back in the Truro area, more than 12 hours since the first alarm went
in at Portapique Beach Road, the RCMP were still playing catch-up. At
10:21 a.m., the force
tweeted
that GW was in the Central Onslow and Debert area “in a vehicle that
may resemble what appears to be an RCMP vehicle & may be wearing
what appears to be an RCMP uniform.” By then, he was long gone, but the
tweet or whatever else the RCMP was saying in its internal
communications may well have provoked one of the strangest known
incidents that day.
The Onslow Belmont Fire Hall. Photo: Jennifer Henderson
Around 10:30 a.m., two Mounties emerged from a black Hyundai Elantra
and started firing toward an emergency services worker outside the
Onslow Belmont Fire Brigade Fire Hall. The Mounties shot up the fire
hall and just missed hitting people inside while causing considerable
damage to equipment. One of the Mounties went into the fire hall for a
moment and then the two left in the Hyundai.
The killer was well on the other side of Truro by then.
Five minutes earlier, at 10:25 a.m., in a well-known security video,
the killer pulled into the lot of a business in Millbrook, got out of
the car and changed out of a RCMP jacket into a yellow vest. He got back
in the car and headed south toward Shubenacadie where two RCMP
constables, Chad Morrison and Heidi Stevenson were driving in separate
vehicles to meet up near the intersection of Highway 2 and 224.
Ten minutes after changing into the vest, the killer pulled up beside
Const. Morrison who was waiting by the side of the road for Const.
Stevenson. He fired into the car, striking Morrison in one hand and the
other arm.
Morrison apparently radioed for help, but the media have not been privy to that communication.
A Nova Scotia EHS tape, widely circulating on the Internet, indicates
that at around the time shortly after Morrison was shot and paramedics
responded. In the conversation with a dispatcher, a paramedic described a
“member” (the common term for a Mountie) who was shot in the foot. The
paramedic says he can’t transport the patient to hospital yet because he
first had to recover a gun the officer had left in the woods and lock
his police car. The RCMP has not confirmed any of this.
At 10:48 a.m., the killer slammed his vehicle into that of Const.
Stevenson at the traffic circle connecting highways 2 and 224. The RCMP
says Stevenson “engaged” the killer, but witnesses say he shot at her
through the windshield and then dragged her out of her damaged vehicle.
He then executed her with multiple shots as she lay on the pavement. He
set his and Stevenson’s vehicles on fire. When a passerby, Joey Webber,
stopped to help, he was killed. The killer then dragged his guns and
paraphernalia to Webber’s Chevy Tracker and drove off.
After the shootings were reported, the RCMP still did not try to get in front of the killer and stop him.
-
- Gina Goulet
-
- Joey Webber
Between 11:06 and 11:23 a.m. the killer was less than a kilometre
from the traffic circle where Stevenson was killed, now at the home of
Gina Goulet, a fellow denturist. He shot her and her dog, changed
clothes and stole her car, a Mazda 3.
The RCMP, meanwhile, was now looking for GW in Joey Webber’s Chev Tracker, issuing a Tweet to that effect at 11:24 a.m.
Unfortunately, for the killer, Goulet’s vehicles gas tank may have
been empty. That seems a likely reason why he pulled into the Irving
Station at Endfield; or, perhaps, he felt the gathering police presence
around him. Instead of blocking off roads, the RCMP was going to
businesses such as Sobeys and asking them to close their doors.
It was around this time that Halifax Police became engaged and began
to set up a roadblock at exit 5A on Highway 102 heading into Halifax,
one exit south of the airport. The Halifax Examiner previously
reported
another curiosity about the lookout for the killer in that Halifax
Police Chief Dan Kinsella apparently ordered his officers to attempt to
capture the killer and not shoot him.
Whatever the case, suspect was in his vehicle at the Irving station
when a Mountie, reportedly a canine officer, who was stopped to fill up
his vehicle recognized him. A brief confrontation ensued and the shooter
was killed.
Meanwhile, the Department of Natural Resources helicopter was done
with its reconnaissance of the Portapique crime scenes and was returning
to Halifax. In the distance, the black smoke from the two burning cars
at the traffic circle. Sources say they pilot was never engaged to try
and hunt down the killer.
Obviously operating on a different frequency than other Mounties, the
pilot was informed that the suspect was down at the Irving Station at
Exit 7 on the 102.
As he landed in a field near the station to let off the Mountie who
was with him, the pilot received a transmission from a gruff sounding
RCMP Officer who identified himself as being “the RCMP Command Post.”
What the Mountie had to tell him was that the suspect had been brought down at the Irving Station in Enfield “at Exit 11.”
Exit 11, as it turns out, is in Stewiacke, approximately 43 kilometres to the north.
It was a fitting end to an epic policing failure.
https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/an-epic-failure-the-first-duty-of-police-is-to-preserve-life-through-the-nova-scotia-massacre-the-rcmp-saved-no-one/?fbclid=IwAR0_j4vWJgQzOADWvT1k9gPWqagWguJOovsGGd34Oo435r393M6RwH310Ls
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