A retired officer in charge of the Bible Hill RCMP detachment in April 2020 in the shooting that killed 22 people testified at inquiry hearings into the shooting.
Sergeant Al Carroll learned of the situation in Portapique, when his son, who was also a police officer, called him home to warn him.
His son, the agent Jordan Carrollworked in Cumberland County and he helped block a section of Highway 2 west of the entrance to the Portapique neighborhood, where the violence began.
That night, a gunman attacked neighbors, killing 13 people, before fleeing aboard a replica police vehicle. The next morning, Gabriel Wortman killed nine other people in different communities.
Al Carroll appearing via videoconference with the Massive Losses Commission on Thursday, following commission approval. He will still have to answer lawyers ’questions for the victims’ families.
Al Carroll accumulated 40 years of service to RCMP during the tragedy and his role was primarily administrative.
He supervised the detachment’s personnel, including 34 officers, but on the night of April 18, 2020, he put on a uniform and went to the office to help.
Al Carroll assist in the position of officers in the Portapique area and close some roads.
commission adviser, Roger Burrillasked him to comment on a radio message from the agent Vicki Colfordposted April 18 at 10:48 pm
He says : Millbrook, if you want to look at the map, tells us that there is a road, a kind of road that a person can walk on if they know the roads.
Police later determined the shooter was driving on a private road beyond a field of blueberries.
Al Carroll said it was the first time he had heard the audio segment. He explained that radio transmission could have happened while he was on the phone.
That night he moved to a makeshift command center set in Great Village and he worked in collaboration with his colleagues Steve Halliday at Addie MacCallum.
Computer access issues
I Roger Burrill also asked what Agent Carroll uses when planning to close the perimeter. He said Constable MacCallum consulted what he believed Google Earth and that they examined the topography of Portapique, including the blueberry field.
Just like a big field, big open field, no exit pointhe testified. We looked at what we needed to look at. We saw no road.
The agent MacCallum told the commission that he was not satisfied with the view of Google Earthbut he was not connected to an RCMP satellite imagery program that night.
Al Carroll was not trained in this program, as he plans to retire in May 2020.
He said he also relied on personnel from the operational communications center RCMPbecause they have access to this program and they can check it to find access points.
With information from Elizabeth McMillan ng CBC
Source: Radio-Canada
