A document released as part of the Portapique shooting investigation shows that the shooter who shot 22 people in Nova Scotia was on police radar ten years before the incident.
The report filed Tuesday said he had been the subject of police investigations on at least two occasions.
He threatened to kill his parents in 2010
In June 2010, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) detachment in Moncton, New Brunswick, contacted the shooter’s uncle. The latter told police Len Vickers that his nephew, who lives in the Halifax area, threatened to kill his parents.
Later that day, Constable Len Vickers informed Halifax Regional Police Sergeant Cordell Poirier that he also received a complaint from the shooter’s father, about the death threat from his son.
Constable Cordell Poirier reported that he and another officer attended the murderer’s home in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, where they spoke with his partner, Lisa Banfield, at 3:25 p.m.
The document indicates that Lisa Banfield told police that her husband was asleep. He also said he was angry at a letter he received the other day about a long legal battle with his parents over the property. Constable Poirier asked Lisa Banfield if there were any weapons in the house; he says no.
The officer checked the Canadian Firearms Registry for possible firearms and reported that if he own weapons, they are not registered . The document also indicates that the shooter never applied for a gun license.
Officer Cordell Poirier reported that he later spoke on the phone with the man who would commit the massacre, who told him he had a pellet gun and two unused antique muskets hanging on the wall of his home. cottage in Portapique.
Officer Cordell Poirier said he closed the case on Aug. 26, 2010, after he failed to contact the shooter’s father.
He threatened against police in 2011
The second threat, this time against police, resulted in a warning from the Truro, Nova Scotia Police Service nearly a year later.
On May 4, 2011, Nova Scotia’s Criminal Intelligence Service released a security bulletin about him: Corporal Greg Densmore warned his colleagues he wanted kill the police .
The note was based on information from an unnamed source who told police the man was in possession of at least one gun and several rifles, stored in a compartment behind the fireplace at his rural home in Portapique.
Halifax Regional Police Constable Cordell Poirier noticed the bulletin, which he said posed a realistic threat.
He said he spoke with Constable Greg Densmore, the bulletin’s author, and the shooter’s father before contacting the RCMP in Bible Hill, where superintendent Constable John McMinn said he was unaware of this record. Officer Cordell Poirier said he gave John McMinn his report in 2010, including information about the shooter’s personal vehicle.
The document indicates that supervisor John McMinn searched the database, but it does not add any additional details.
The third incident was in 2013
The third incident related to the report filed with police on July 6, 2013 by a former neighbor of the shooter in Portapique. Brenda Forbes told Inquiry that she shared her beliefs about the possession of illegal firearms during a complaint about a domestic abuse incident involving Lisa Banfield.
However, searches of RCMP records following the killings in 2020 indicate that responding officers were taken lowest grade at that time. Much of the information had been cleared, and RCMP investigators eventually determined that the incident was parameters outside the survey to kill.
An RCMP email dated June 9, 2020 also indicated this seems to have discrepancy in remembrance of Brenda Forbes in her call to the police, and added that there was no record of a events at home the day described by the neighbor.
Brenda Forbes then told the Board of Inquiry, on Aug. 19, 2021, that the police had never called her about her complaint and they had not recorded their conversation when she spoke to them.
An arsenal acquired in the United States
On the other hand, the document also offers details of the arsenal of the shooter at his home in Portapique.
It shows that relatives on both sides of his family and others, including neighbors and people who worked on his property, saw his guns. The document released Tuesday clarified that the shooter was not ashamed to tell people he got some of his guns from the United States.
Lisa Banfield told commission investigators that she owned it Rambo and military style guns and that he bought his handguns in the United States and brought them back to Canada hidden in the back of his truck.
When police fired the shooter while refueling in a stolen car north of Halifax, he was holding several guns.
The document says police recovered a Glock 23 pistol, a Ruger P89 pistol, a Colt Carbine 5.56 semi-automatic rifle, a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle and a Smith & Wesson Model 5947 handgun, which they owned of RCMP officer Heidi Stevenson, was shot by the shooter shortly before.
Source: Radio-Canada
