Police officers from the RCMP’s Tactical Intervention Group tasked with tracking down the perpetrator of the Nova Scotia killings in April 2020 were busy in Portapique when they were alerted hours later that the killer was more than 40. kilometers away. away.
A new document released on Monday by the Commission of Inquiry into the tragedy that claimed the lives of 22 people offers details of the initial response of the armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Emergency Response Team.
Corporal Tim MillsSi, who leads the 13-police team, was first given a briefing about the current situation in Portapique around 10:45 pm on Saturday, April 18, 2020. The first members of his team arrived near Portapique less than two hours later , early Sunday night.
In September 2021, commission investigators questioned Corporal mills what his combat team knew was what was going on as the unit converged on the small town in central Nova Scotia from several locations across the province.
Just the mess. You know: just corpses, burning houses and explosions, that’s all we knowsaid Mr. Mills.
Shortly after arrival, the team was about to enter Portapique when they were again deployed to verify several sightings involving a suspect with a flashlight outside homes in the Five Houses community. , on the other river and about two miles away.
But combat team officers don’t have working digital tracking and mapping devices on their vehicles, while the technology in their phones that would allow officers to locate each other doesn’t work. As a result, they relied on verbal radio instructions from commanders to fight their way into complete darkness.
Corporal Mills admitted to investigators that night the officers very sacred against their inability to find their way around the field.
No helicopter
For the same reasons, Corporal mills also expressed frustration with his team’s next mission: rescue Clinton Ellison, who was hiding in a woods in Portapique after a shooter killed his sister Corrie Ellison a few hours ago. Corporal mills told investigators that Mr. Ellison It would have been found sooner if there was tracking technology or a helicopter above to determine a body heat signature.
He also pointed out that the same may have been applied to the shooter’s wife, Lisa Banfield, who spent the night hiding in the woods. He was eventually found by the tactical team the next morning after seeking shelter in the home of a Portapique resident.
The document filed with the commission confirms that the RCMP certainly knew, after speaking to Ms Banfield around 6:45 am, that the shooter Gabriel Wortman was heavily armed and disappeared in an exact replica of a patrol vehicle RCMP.
The tactical team was finally updated at 8:20 am with additional information pertaining to the patrol car’s call sign, written on the side of the car.
The tactical team was conducting a house-to-house evacuation in the Portapique area when police received a 911 call around 9:35 a.m. about the shooting in Wentworth. A witness said an RCMP vehicle left the scene.
The team was rushing towards Wentworth when they suddenly came to a house glenholme, where the kill was seen. After securing this place, the tactical team was eventually sent to Debert, where Kristen Beaton at Heather O’Brien was killed.
The chase eventually led to the tactical team through the Truro communities, BrookfieldShubenacadie, Elmsdale and finally Enfieldwhere Wortman was shot and killed at a gas station.
Corporal Mills, retired from RCMP in July 2021, commission investigators told him he was pleased with his team’s performance, which he said was faced with a strange situation. In other words: it’s impossible, you know, to imagine a scenario like that, because so many things happen at once.did he declare.
Source: Radio-Canada