Fears that the public will panic if they receive alerts during dangerous situations are more fictional than reality, emergency warning system experts said in a public inquiry into the mass shooting on Thursday in Nova Scotia.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officials told the Board of Inquiry that if police issued a public alert about a murderer driving a replica patrol car, it would cause a Furious to the public and endanger officials. Ang RCMP It has also been suggested that 911 operators may be shocked by calls from people seeking information about the April 18 and 19, 2020 killings.
Instead, messages Twitter in the emergency was broadcast to a limited audience. The posts did not clearly state what the replica police car looked like until 10:17 am on April 19, 2020, near the end of the 13-hour murder.
Family members of the kill victims said lives could have been saved if people had been warned earlier. The killer evaded police for two days while driving a replica of a car from RCMP.
Don’t panic if the alerts are clear
At a roundtable on Thursday, some participants said concerns about public panic in the Alert Ready system, whose alerts are broadcast on radio, television and smartphones, were unfounded. , as long as they clearly indicate how to react.
The Chief of the Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office, Paul Masonsaid that since the massive shooting of 22 people took place in April 2020, there have been 12 uses of the Standby system for events involving police action, added: we saw no mass panic in response to using the system.
Cheryl McNeilA consultant and former employee of the Toronto police, called the theory a panic myth and mentioned that As long as the alerts are clear, concise, and provide direction, I don’t see how panic can be an expected result in letting the public know the information they need.
Besides this, jennifer jestyemergency planning manager for Mi’kmaq Union of Nova Scotia, residents of Mi’kmaq communities in Cape Breton said they now expect local alerts generated by his office and they are upset when they are not notified .
Coming to the point that if something happens in the community, people will go to social media and say, “Where’s the alert”?said Ms. jesty.
The alert is launched during the search
The Inquiry recently released documents including an interview where Paul Mason has been confirmed RCMP did not think to use the Alert Ready system until his organization suggested it, soon after the 13-hour uprising.
Lord. mason indicated that the RCMP He knew very well the capabilities of the system and three years ago the RCMP has rejected an offer from the Office of Emergency Management for police to assume responsibility for themselves to issue alerts.
The national Alert Ready system has been in place since 2015.
Dave MacNeilChief of Police at TruroNova Scotia, in an interview with the investigator last year shortly after the mass shooting, the commanding officer of RCMP in Nova Scotia, the assistant commissioner Lee Bergermanheld a conference call in which he presented a story with city police chiefs suggesting that the existing Standby system does not work for law enforcement situations.
Lord. MacNeil he and the other leaders said they had already clarified does not embrace this storyor the point of view being said it will overload the 911 system because people are getting information and calling.
The position of the gendarmes finally changed in the months after the mass shooting. On April 30, 2021, Mr. Bergerman signed an agreement authorizing RCMP to issue their own alerts through the Alert Ready system.
Source: Radio-Canada