A Nova Scotia police chief told an investigator last year that after a mass shooting in 2020 he felt “pushed” by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) not to release a report warning the shooting was a known threat several years before he was killed.
In an interview more critical of RCMPTruro Chief Constable, David MacNeilsaid that shortly after the killings on April 18 and 19, 2020, officials RCMP, Chris Leather at Janis Grayarranged a call to discuss whether the boss would publicly disclose a warning in 2011 about the killer, Gabriel Worman.
Mr MacNeil said senior officials who sent a security report nine years before the murder – warning officers that Gabriel Wortman was in possession of restricted firearms and that he wanted to kill the police – will be made public following access to information requests.
Said the chief RCMP asked him if the document possibly causing problemsand he allegedly replied that he was releasing the document and it was not a problem for his police department.
David MacNeil said in public inquiry into the hunt he and his deputy felt to push in the direction he was uncomfortable.
However, Captain Chris Marshall, a spokesman for RCMPstated already Chris Leather at Janis Gray only contacted the Truro police to more details, including the context of the information in the bulletin and whether additional information is available.
The document excavated by Truro Police is one of several instances stating that the shooter was reported to police in the decade before the killings.
Truro is the closest town to murder scenes in central and northern Nova Scotia. In his interview with the commission, Mr. MacNeil described the information provided by RCMP to Truro police as the shootout takes place fragmented at no sense.
Phone calls
Mr MacNeil said the first indication that Truro Police had a problem was when they received a call from the health center in Colchester East Hants around midnight, about two hours after the first 911 call was made to RCMP from the Portapique area.
The Chief Constable told investigators that according to phone records from his police service, Truro Police called RCMP at 12:06 am to get an update, but the RCMP did not answer the call. Mr. MacNeil said that the RCMP called again at 12:55 am with preliminary information that there was a active shooter scenario in Portapique.
He told investigators he was not personally notified that anything was happening until he received a text message from his deputy chief around 8:30 or 9 am.
I don’t have official advice from anyone other than that because we don’t seem to really know the extent as a police department and what’s going on until the very end.said Mr. MacNeil.
He said he emailed senior officials RCMP and offers Truro Police assistance. He would have received a response a few minutes after 10 am thanking him for the offer, but informing him that the RCMP there was a suspect stuck in Wentworth.
So from there, the decisions I made throughout the day were based on that email they had a suspect in Wentworth.he said. But in fact, the killer was not identified and had not been found before 11:30 am
Once in the office around 10.25 am, Mr. MacNeil said he was told the information from RCMP became very sporadic and the Truro Police there really aren’t any instructions.
Mr MacNeil said Truro Police had received warnings about three possible vehicles driven by the suspect, including one after 8am that the shooter was in a replica car from RCMP fully identified. Only after the murder did he learn of a video from a citizen showing the murderer driving in the town of Truro, Mr MacNeil said.
Investigators identified a timeline of RCMP stating that one of their officers called Truro Police at 10:15 a.m. asking them to close all access points in their town in case the suspect travels there. The leader said it was not clear what exactly it meant at this time. For example, where do you like the roadblock? he told investigators.
He said there was no follow-up to the call because there was another phone call at 10:59 am that the suspect was on a road south of Truro, then another advising that the suspect may be in a grocery store, which created of the maze at its exact location.
Mr. MacNeil advised that at 11:29 am the RCMP called to say he killed the suspect.
The chief maintained that his critical comments had nothing to do with the possibility that his police department could play a role in changing the RCMP in rural areas around Truro.
Source: Radio-Canada
