S03E20: THE NOVA SCOTIA MASS SHOOTING (PART II)

AJ: Coming up on this episode of Crime Family.

Stephanie: This stuff that you're telling me is blowing my mind right now.

AJ: A couple of weeks after the mass shooting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau actually implemented a ban on assault style weapons.

Katie: Well, yeah, it says he would get packages delivered to his friend's house in Maine for various parts. Some of the parts were for motorcycles, some of the parts were actually for the replica police cars.

AJ: But the inquiry is the next best thing. It's like the RCMP is on trial, in a way.

Jennifer: They could have done the simple thing and just put out generic information, like, "Stay in your house, lock your door and shut your window or shut your blinds." They could have done that, not just on Twitter and other social media, but they should have done that as a public alert.

AJ: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Crime Family. This is part two of our two part season finale. We are talking about the Nova Scotia mass shooting that happened back in 2020. I'm assuming you listened to our first part already, but I just wanted to remind you as well, that we will be discussing intense topics like domestic violence and gun violence. I just wanted to place the warning up front. It might be disturbing to listen to. In the first part, we got a detailed timeline of the events of April 18th and 19th leading up to Wortman's death after he was at the Enfield gas station, after he killed 22 people and injured three others. I guess it was the biggest mass shooting in Canadian history and there were so many mistakes made by the RCMP that came out later and there was the Mass Casualty Commission that formed to look into the investigation of the killings and also looked into the events of that night and where the RCMP went wrong in all of this. There is a really great website, masscasualtycommission.ca, and it has all of the documents from the inquiry and a lot of really good information. Of course it is very detailed. It's still ongoing because it was formed in 2020 and the hearings are happening now. I feel like every few days while there's hearings, there is all these updates that are still coming up. It isn't complete necessarily yet, but there is some information that did come out and some of it is quite shocking. I just want to talk a bit about the horror of it all. One thing that did come out in the inquiry was a really sad detail. I'm just going to read from the National Post article here. This is a piece of information that hasn't been included in the inquiry thus far. The Fitbit of victim, Heather O'Brien, who was 55, apparently showed her having a heartbeat for several hours after the police had declared her dead. On the morning of April 19th, O'Brien had been on the phone with her friend Leona Allen, when Wortman fired several shots into her parked Volkswagen Jetta. Allen would tell investigators she heard screaming, a thud, and then nothing. Constable Ian Fahie was one of the first to see O'Brien after the shooting and would tell the commission that she was not showing a pulse and her fingers were cold. Another attending officer Devonna Coleman would say the same thing. However, both of these were contradicted by Fahie's police report from that day, which said that O'Brien had been registering a weak pulse and had been making slight noises, which is just crazy! The fact that her Fitbit was recording her heartbeat and she did have a heartbeat for hours after the fact. The fact that they didn't even, I mean, it's just crazy to me that that detail came out and it really stuck with me. I remember mom actually told me about it back in April when it came out, that detail. But the fact that they were just, she wasn't even technically dead. She still had a heartbeat and the fact that they just didn't tend to her or didn't bring her to the hospital and...

Stephanie: They didn't do CPR on her?

AJ: Well, apparently not, not according to this article. I mean maybe they did at first, but she was still breathing and she still had a heartbeat for hours after that.

Stephanie: Anybody who's first on the scene should do CPR if required.

Katie: Well, yeah. I don't think a police officer can declare someone dead. Do actually need the EMTs to do that? So you have to call them regardless, don't you? Somebody else has to be there to do that. They can't just be like, "Oh she's dead. Let's move on."

AJ: I know. And that's the way it seems. Then it also says in this article that ambulances weren't being allowed into the area in case Wortman were to return. Fahie himself turned O'Brien's daughter, McKayla Scott away when she attempted to reach the Jetta, "You need to go, it's not safe for you to be here." he told her. Scott's own testimony to the commission would say, "They took away my right to hold my mother's hand to say goodbye." So that's crazy! Also this article goes on to say, "In a Facebook post earlier this month, O'Brien's family posted data from her Fitbit, showing that she was registering a heartbeat as late as 6:00 PM, nearly eight hours after her daughter had tried to reach the scene." We know this information is controversial." The Post read, "The Fitbit data has not been included in an official commission account surrounding the events that killed O'Brien, although the commission has reportedly left open the possibility that it could be submitted as evidence." That part of it wouldn't be about the actual events of the killing and Wortman's path, but it would show the carelessness that went along with some of this information.

Stephanie: You said they weren't letting EMTs in because they're afraid?

AJ: Yeah. Well, this article says ambulances weren't being allowed into the area in case Wortman were to return. So this is all directly quoted from the article. This is what it says. This would've been before he was obviously killed or before they knew...

Stephanie: I'm just confused. What does EMT's, I mean, I get for their safety, but somebody's hurt, they need somebody to help them. I don't understand that.

AJ: I think obviously they're not going to know that her Fitbit is recording her heartbeat, so maybe they just thought she was dead and they're like, "We don't need an EMT here." I don't know. Like we said in the past, when Katie was talking about the timeline, there was just so much going on and nobody was acting in the right way and everyone was just frantic. Obviously, you know, these same people are shooting into fire halls, and just acting crazy. I don't know. I'm not surprised even though it was jarring to read it, but it also doesn't surprise me just considering everything else we know about what happened.

Katie: Yeah. That's sad. She could have been saved if the proper people were there to examine her or actually confirm that she was still alive. So that's sad.

AJ: Yeah. I just feel so bad for the family knowing this piece of information. I mean, I feel like a Fitbit doesn't lie if it's recording her heartbeat, obviously she had a pulse. It is just the lost potential too. They could have saved this person. Either they didn't have the wherewithal to do it, or they were just preoccupied. I don't know. I mean, there's no excuse for it at all. I don't want to sit here and try to justify it. It can't really be justified to be honest. Then there's another detail that did come out about the inquiry too. It's also included in the same National Post article, but there's allegedly roughly 44 people who have reported coming within sight of Wortman during the killings. Meaning that they were likely only a few seconds removed from becoming victims themselves. The most notable is RCMP Corporal Rodney Peterson who saw Wortman baring an "unsettling grimace" as he drove past him going the opposite direction at 9:47 AM on the massacres' second day, "If I stop and this is the bad guy I'm going to get shot here. I'm going to get killed." This is what he would later tell inquiry lawyers. He continued on for more than a kilometer before turning around reasoning that if he tried to turn around on the tight confines of the two lane highway, he would be ambushed while performing a four or five point turn. By the time Peterson was able to start driving in Wortman's direction he wasn't able to find the shooter. It's pretty jarring that he drove past him and still had to take time, "Oh, I don't feel safe turning around here, or I can't do this." It seems like he was scared. I don't know.

Stephanie: You're a fucking police officer.

AJ: I know this also goes back to like, aren't these people trained in these situations to be able to do this. It's just crazy to me that you can say, "Oh, I didn't feel safe turning." It's a fucking deserted road. There's not that many people on the road. Just do something! It's crazy to me. I don't know.

Stephanie: I'm sorry. This stuff that you're telling me is blowing my mind right now. I don't remember any of this. I read some stuff about the inquiries, but I don't remember any of this. You're a police officer. Your job is to turn around and catch the person that's doing whatever they're doing. If you're scared, don't be a police officer.

AJ: I know, it just doesn't really seem like his justification makes sense at all." I didn't feel like I could make a four point turn here safely, so I had to go down the road a little bit before I felt safe that I could do it. Then by that time he's gone." Well, obviously he's gone. He's driving away probably at fast speed.

Stephanie: I'm sorry. This is boiling my blood.

AJ: Yeah.

Stephanie: This is incompetence.

AJ: Like I said, this is from the National Post article from April 9th, 2022. Some of this, I literally just read from the article, because I didn't want to misinterpret it, or I didn't want to get the wrong information, but yeah, that's literally what it says. That's just two of the things and because the inquiry is still going on, they're having hearings every day, there's so much information out there. It's a lot of how they fucked up and the various ways in which they fucked up.

Jennifer: I feel like between these new inquiries and when the news got around that all this shit happened, I feel like the police are doing the opposite in this situation. They're supposed to be there to serve and protect the public. I feel like they're doing the fucking opposite, like shooting a police officer at the fire hall, then you get them not doing CPR on a victim and then this. It's just fucking ridiculous.

Katie: Yeah. It does seem like they're doing the opposite in every situation. They're going to shoot at actual police officers, but then not shoot at the actual person.

AJ: Yeah. It makes it seem s like they're in that moment. Every person for themselves, like "I'm gonna do this to protect myself." That one guy who's like, "Well, I don't feel safe turning around here."" I was scared. I didn't know what to do." Who are these RCMP officers? Is this the best we have?

Stephanie: I get that this was a shock to everybody. This was the worst mass shooting in Canadian history, so maybe they weren't prepared 100%, but do your fucking job properly! Don't be scared if somebody's going to shoot at you. That's what you have weapons for.

AJ: I know. It's pretty crazy. I think the inquiry, as more information comes out, it's almost like no one can be shocked anymore about the information that comes out, because it's just like every thing that comes out is just worse than the last.

Stephanie: It's painting the RCMP in a very bad picture to Nova Scotians. We can't trust them. With all this information coming out it's like if we can't trust our RCMPs who the hell can we trust?

AJ: It's not necessarily a foreign concept because I mean, in many of the cases we've covered on the podcast, it's police misconduct and things you can't really explain other than they're just incompetent or they don't want to do their jobs properly so it doesn't surprise me. It almost seems like a lot of it necessarily isn't intentional. It just shows how incompetent they were. Maybe they were trying, but even their best effort was far less than what was required. What it seems like anyway.

Katie: Yeah, it just seems like they were very unprepared and didn't know how to handle the situation at all and just made all the mistakes.

AJ: This man was able to drive around for 13 hours across the province and kill 22 people in 13 hours in various locations. Most of Nova Scotia is rural, right? You have Halifax and Dartmouth, which is the city center of the province, but everything else, other than that is pretty much rural. Makes you wonder, that in some ways Nova Scotia was the perfect place for something like this to happen, because if this was happening in a big city, you know, you're not going to get too far. There's so many more people that could be witness to things, so many more people that could call and report things. I feel like in some ways, because it was a rural community it was the perfect environment for something like this to happen. Is so sad. What do you guys think? Definitely not. Right? You're not going to have someone drive around for 13 hours.

Stephanie: Well, no. Where you live, AJ, that wouldn't have never happened. You wouldn't have somebody going around shooting people for 13 hours in downtown Toronto. It doesn't work that way.

AJ: Yeah, definitely not. I mean the police are definitely incompetent here in many ways too, but it just wouldn't happen. Like I said, there's so many more people that can report things and call 911 and track his movements. Right? Like anywhere you go in the city here, there's going to be someone that can witness it versus rural Nova Scotia.

Stephanie: A lot of places here in Nova Scotia don't have the best cell reception. So even if you were trying to report something there's a lot of places out here that don't have service. If you were trying to report it, you saw him somewhere you'd have to go somewhere where you have service. That could be a mile down the road or something. It's harder to get in contact with people because of where you live. It's also a smaller area, so everybody knows everybody too. Either way, it's a horrible situation that happened and it should never have happened.

AJ: Also too, I was actually going back to our, Steph, Katie, me and our other sister, Lisa, we have a group chat for the four of us, and I was actually going back to the chat on that day, just to see it. There was an article, I think somebody put it in the chat, and it, the article even said, "Gabriel Wortman is in custody." Even the initial articles didn't say that he died. It was that he was in custody. How did they get that wrong?

Stephanie: Yes, I did. I think I posted that.

AJ: Yeah. I think you sent it to us in the group. You're like, "Oh, he was caught." I was like, "How do you get that wrong?" I mean, that could have been the media's fault also, but the RCMP obviously weren't releasing that information, so either is he in custody or is he dead? I don't know.

Stephanie: I don't understand why they handcuffed him even though he was dead or was he dead?

Katie: They said, this was from the Nighttime Podcast again, they said that he likely was already dead, but just to be safe, they handcuffed him when they took him out of the car. You know, just in case. They didn't want to take any chances. Technically he was in custody. They handcuffed him. Whether he's dead or not you can still be dead in custody. Maybe that's just protocol to say he's in custody.

AJ: Yeah, I guess, but when I hear in custody, I don't think he's dead. You think, shooter has been killed versus he's in custody. I guess it makes sense he's arrested. He's technically in custody, even if he's not alive.

Katie: Yeah. I wonder how long it took them to say that he was actually dead.

AJ: Yeah.

Katie: When did they release that I wonder?

AJ: I don't think that was too much later, but I think initially no one knew that he had actually died. They just thought he was captured. Then there was the whole thing of did he get shot by the police officers or did he kill himself? I think that came out in the inquiry. There's also a book written about the mass shooting saying that he had turned the gun on himself around the same time that they started to shoot, so they thought that maybe he had actually shot himself, and that's how he died versus the police actually being the ones to kill him. I don't really have an answer either way about which one it actually was. Not that it really matters at the end of the day. I mean, the police are saying that they killed him, "He's dead because we killed him." There's an interesting note, and we can have a larger discussion about this, but a couple of weeks after the mass shooting Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau actually implemented a ban on assault style weapons across Canada. I feel like that is a natural thing to do when you have a mass shooting and somebody who is using a weapon that is not legal or maybe was able to obtain it because they weren't strict enough. He did get it from the states, allegedly, but, I don't know, I just feel like it's a stark comparison to what you see in the States. For example, when they have mass shooting after mass shooting and nothing happens. When you compare it to here, he actually was able to ban assault style weapons after the shooting.

Stephanie: It's unfortunate that it took a mass shooting in Nova Scotia for that to happen.

AJ: I know. I mean, technically it was part of his platform when he got reelected, but he didn't actually do it until the mass shooting, which is annoying that it took that to happen. He did it regardless. It's interesting. I thought that assault rifles were already banned in Canada before that, but apparently Justin Trudeau made them illegal after the shooting, so obviously they weren't. Maybe there was restrictions but now they are actually fully illegal. Anyways, he definitely did something towards gun control legislation after the shooting. I just think it's interesting because it's such a stark difference in what you get from the States when they have a mass shooting and literally nothing changes.

Stephanie: If Justin Trudeau can ban weapons here in Nova Scotia, I'm pretty sure the president of the United States can also ban weapons.

Katie: Oh yeah, he can but he's not going to, that's the thing.

Stephanie: I'm saying if we can do it, then obviously they can do it.

AJ: It just sucks that it took 22 people dying to have that happen. At least it shows somebody taking action after something like this. There was a bit of a controversy as well, and the Liberal government came in under fire. During the whole inquiry, there was allegations that the Liberal government interfered in the RCMP investigation after the shooting had happened. It took place in that two week period between when the shooting happened and when they banned assault rifles. It was because they were trying to get information about the type of weapons that were used, which apparently the RCMP knew at the time, but it wasn't released out in the public. There was allegations that the Liberal government interfered in the investigation so that they could get that information for the assault weapon legislation that they were going to enact. There was a bit of how much did they meddle in the investigation to get that information? Then there was a lot of articles back and forth about that. People defending it saying, "No, we didn't have any other information, it was the RCMP that had full control of the investigation." "We didn't know anything more than they did." Then there was other information that came out that said that the Liberal government was promised that the RCMP was going to say, in their press conference, the type of gun that was used, but then they didn't. A lot of political turmoil as well in terms of how much they knew or didn't know. I'm not really sure again, that doesn't really change anything about the shooting itself, but just kind of interesting.

Stephanie: My other concerning question is, "How did he get those weapons across the border?"

AJ: He got them from the states, but I don't necessarily know, unless somebody else does. Jennifer, you sent me this article from MacLeans magazine. It actually came out in October of 2020 about this. It says, "Through a friendship with a disgraced New Brunswick lawyer, and a possible real estate scam in 2010, Gabriel Wortman netted hundreds of thousands of dollars, which he then allegedly used to buy some of these weapons." It's also hard too, because a lot of the stuff that came out in 2020 was like Katie said at the beginning, a lot of misinformation was out there at the time, so I don't know how much from 2020 is legit.

Stephanie: In an article that I just found from May of 2022, it says that the gunman took the five hour drive to Maine 15 times over two years prior to the shooting.

AJ: Yeah.

Stephanie: So he drove there 15 times.

Katie: Well, yeah, it says he would get packages delivered to his friend's house in Maine for various parts. Some of the parts were for motorcycles, some of the parts were actually for the replica police car. A lot of people buy parts for guns and then assemble them at their own house, so they're not purchasing this whole gun that's going to have to come through the fucking post office. They buy little pieces here and there so they can build it. If it's illegal in the States, then we could just buy all these little pieces and then go pick them up.

AJ: I wonder, if that friend that he was FaceTiming with on the day of April 18th, if this the same friend from Maine? That guy was from Maine, right? Are these the same friends that he was shipping this stuff to and then getting them?

Katie: I think it is, but I don't know.

AJ: Yeah. I mean is it just a coincidence that both people were from Maine? Lisa, Gabriel's partner was also charged, right?

Katie: There were three people in Canada that were charged with helping him get ammunition. One of them was. Lisa, the other one was Lisa's brother and then her brother-in-law. They were all charged with supplying him with ammunition. They probably didn't know what he was going to use it for, but it was obviously illegal.

AJ: I guess this leads into the next thing I was going to talk about. Gabriel, he did have violent tendencies in the past and there was one article that I've seen here from CTV News Atlantic, from just March of this year, talking a bit about Gabriel's past. I think this is the Uncle that you were talking about before who was a Mounty. He said he was aware of Gabriel Wortman's previous plans to kill his parents, which weren't carried out and his severe beating of his father during a trip to the Dominican Republic years ago. This is somebody who has a history of being violent and already had multiple complaints about him. It's just my thought that somebody who's known to be violent and you're going to supply him with these firearms, I feel like you don't think that he's going to go on this violent rampage, but also you have to know you're supplying ammunition to this person who's violent. Nothing good can come from that. Right? I'm not the only one that would think that? Clearly you have to think about about what you're doing.

Katie: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Lisa would, for sure know that he was violent because he abused her. She was a victim of his, an abuse victim, so you know, she probably wasn't going to stand up to him.

AJ: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. She didn't feel comfortable standing up to him for that. Also I read this article too, through research, one of the first articles that came out in 2020 after this happened, it was from some newspaper in Edmonton, it said Wortman was, "A quiet man." They didn't know the extent of who he was back then obviously. I just feel like that's a vast misrepresentation of who he was. I feel like that paints a very different picture of who he actually was, a person with a violent history who friends and relatives thought he might kill his partner or his parents. That doesn't really paint the same picture as someone who's quiet.

Katie: Yeah. I feel like quiet is not a descriptor that you would use for anyone's violent tendencies. Quiet people can be violent and so can loud people. He was quiet, that has nothing to do with the situation I feel. When we were talking earlier about what pushed him over the edge? There was an article written by CBC and this was in March of 2022. Lisa Banfield says that in the weeks leading up to the shooting, he started to unravel. He was drinking a lot. He had buried hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. Just buried it somewhere. He made unusual comments about evading police and wanting to die. Obviously something was happening. That was the end of his spiral, to do this shooting spree. There were warning signs I think but just nobody picked up on them in time.

AJ: There were those warning signs but also people knew that he would collect old RCMP vehicles. How many warning signs do you need? He's collecting these RCMP vehicles, he has a violent history and people know this and they're giving him ammunition. What does he need it for? Did they know he was an avid hunter? To me it's like, how many red flags do you need?

Stephanie: I remember reading something somewhere a couple months after the mass shooting happened that someone had reported to the police before that he had these replica police vehicles and he was impersonating a police officer, but nobody ever came to the house to check on it.

AJ: Part of the problem too, is that there was so much that came out initially. A lot of it was misinformation. I feel like I'm mixing up a lot of what was misinformation versus what wasn't. One of the first things said was he was at a big house party that night. Then he left and got into a fight with Lisa and then went back and killed everyone at the party. That wasn't true. None of that came up in that timeline that you said, Katie?

Katie: No, I didn't see that anywhere. Unless that's what they were doing before they went home and FaceTimed their friend. The timeline starts with, they go on a little drive and then go home. That could've been before that, but I don't know. You think it would've mentioned that he went to the party and killed everybody. That would've been part of the timeline.

AJ: Yeah, but none of those people that he killed, none of those people were at a party with him before that?

Katie: No, I didn't find anything like that.

AJ: Yeah, so I just find it weird that all this misinformation is coming out? I mean, that's not unusual, really. I feel like something as high profile as this things get rumored. I just feel it's a very weird detail of he was at this party. He went back and killed everyone. We just heard that that's not what happened or it's at least a misrepresentation of what happened.

Stephanie: I remember reading something too that he wasn't well liked by his neighbors either, and that they complained a lot about him.

Katie: Well, yeah, there's another thing that came out early on too, I don't know if this is true, but that he would invite his neighbors over to show them his gun collection and would go on about guns and it made them uncomfortable. I think one of them did report his guns to the police before, and that's what got them on his bad side. If that's true, that could have been a trigger of why he, you know, thought these people were his friends, but they turned him in. That makes sense, but still I don't know if that's true.

Stephanie: If that was the case and the police knew about him, then they would know his name. Do you know what I mean?

AJ: Well, they might have known his name, but in the moment, at 11 o'clock at night, when all this happened , I don't know, are they gonna put two and two together that's who that is? When did they hear his name? I mean, I feel like Jamie said his name on that 911 call that we heard.

Katie: Yeah. People kept saying Gabe and she couldn't remember his last name though. I remember, especially when you look at some of the transcripts, it'll say Gabe, something, Gabe, this and that. They couldn't remember his last name. Then I know Andrew and his phone call said Gabe as well, but nobody actually said Gabriel Wortman. They just didn't know his name, full name or they just, never said it in those 911 calls.

AJ: Yeah. It doesn't necessarily imply that you would know someone's last name just because you're their neighbor.

Katie: They knew he was a denturist who lived in Halifax and collected cars. So, I mean, they did know a lot about him. They probably just couldn't think of his name in the moment.

AJ: There was also an article that came out that one of the people that was killed in the mass shooting was somebody that he had a land dispute with. Someone in his family had lent him their property when they went out, I think it was to Edmonton or some other part of Canada and when they returned he refused to relinquish the house back to this person. The person whose property it was ended up selling it and the buyer was one of the victims of the shooting. Gabriel had it out for him because he bought this property that wasn't even his to begin with. Basically he had stole it or refused to relinquish it when his family member came back. Weird! He had a history of ripping off his family members. People owed him money so it was a very messy situation.

Katie: Yeah. It did say he was a scam artist.

AJ: Yeah. People in his family had various stories or encounters with him where similar things had happened.

Jennifer: Yeah. One similar thing that was happening, like the article that I showed you in MacLeans magazine, was they were going on about how he used to live in Fredericton. He went to UNB and then he met this guy named Tom Evans. I don't know if this article's a hundred percent correct, like you said, a lot of speculation and a lot of misinformation came out in 2020. It all goes back to him being a scam artist artist and how he somehow got $300,000 from this guy named Tom Evans after he sold his rental properties. He owned the business. Again, I don't know if it's misinformation or if it really is true, but it would make sense if it was true.

AJ: Yeah. It falls in line with who we see Gabriel as, and I feel like some of these articles, it's like there's maybe pieces of truthful information, but then it's not like a complete account. It might have one aspect of truth, but then some of it was not right or was misrepresented. I feel like the inquiry that's coming out now is probably the clearest picture of who Gabriel was. It's very messy and very murky because like we said, a lot of this information might not be truthful. A lot of it's speculation, but the stuff that's coming out in the inquiry is probably a lot more factual. I know there was a point where a lot of the families were unhappy with the conduct that was occurring during the inquiry as well and some of the decisions that were made. So, the Mass Casualty Commission members wouldn't allow a couple of lawyers that are representing all of the families of the victims. There was a boycott of the Commission. At first they were going to a lot of the hearings but then they ended up boycotting it because the Commission would not allow the lawyers to directly question some of the RCMP officers. They just made that decision that they weren't going to allow that and the families were very upset with that because they wanted the lawyers to be able to ask them direct questions to some of the misconduct that had happened and clearing up some of the whys about how that happened. For whatever reason the commission just did not allow that to occur. The families did boycott the hearings for a period of time. Then I did see a follow up article that said that now they're not boycotting it, they are going to go to some of these hearings, but it's a rocky relationship, one of mistrust between the Committee and the families. It's not a great relationships there. This is the closest thing we'll ever get to a trial because obviously Gabriel Wortman has died, so we're not going to get a trial of him, but the inquiry is the next best thing. It's like the RCMP is on trial in a way. A lot about their misconduct and how they just allowed this to happen is coming out. Of course the families are very upset. You can imagine the family of that woman who was allegedly alive and her Fitbit was recording her heartbeat for hours. I can't imagine how they're feeling and obviously they're going to have very hurt feelings towards the RCMP for that. Maybe they want to have their lawyers be able to ask these officers direct questions, but they're not being allowed that access. It's very complex. You have the RCMP and their stance, and they're being embarrassed every single day with everything that comes out. Every week you hear something new about the inquiry that comes out and it's basically just a big embarrassment for the RCMP. Obviously they're not happy with all this information that's coming out. It's basically exposing them. The inquiry also does have a detailed timeline of, Katie said it, the detailed timeline of the social media posts that they put out during the attacks and how the first one wasn't put out on Twitter until 11:32. Then the next one was at 8:02AM the next day. It wasn't until 8:54, the first time that they actually said Gabriel Wortman's name. Everything before that was just saying, "It's an active shooter situation. Residents in the area, stay inside your homes." Then there's an article about the people who were in charge of the Twitter posts, or the social media posts, and there was a big delay because they apparently had gotten the information, but then there was 27 minutes between when they got the information, when the first tweet was put out. There was a question of like, "Well. What happened in that 27 minutes?" "Why did it take that long?" Then there was a whole chain of emails where they had to draft up the email, Tweet, then they had to send it for approval to this higher up person, and then they didn't have all the information. So it's basically a chain of demand that's just a total nightmare that ended up being 27 minutes. You don't really have time in that moment. Time is not something that you're going to have and they took a lot of it.

Katie: Yeah. Similarly with them finally releasing that the police car was a replica. They're saying that as soon as they found that information out, once Lisa came forward, they released it, but it was actually hours later. I guess apparently they were waiting to get a picture of the actual car with the actual numbers to post with it. They waited three hours to get that info out there after Lisa had confirmed it for them. I don't know, they were waiting for that picture, but that doesn't seem like enough for them to sit on that info. You can tweet again after. It's not like one tweet and that's final. You can tweet multiple times. .

AJ: Yeah, exactly. I don't know what they were afraid of. Were they afraid of giving wrong information, so they just didn't give any information, I guess. There was also a list of all of the draft tweets. Apparently there was a ton of tweets that were in their draft section. There were multiple different versions of the tweets before they actually went out. This is one of the documents from the Mass Casualty Commission and it's exhibit A. "To Ms. Scanlon's affidavit attached a number of draft tweets from the H division strategic communications unit tweet bank. It includes the following draft messages." RCMP, responding to complaints of an active shooter in and around location. The area is in bracket's, large landmark or community name or event name, avoid the area. Residents stay inside and away from windows. Lock doors. Then another one is # RCMP asking people to avoid the area of XX and XX due to an ongoing incident. We will provide more details as soon as we can. So it's like they made the template and then they put in information once they got it. I don't really know. They just release a list of all of these draft tweets. It's like, "At this time we can confirm shots fired and multiple fatalities. The incident is ongoing. We will release confirmed info as soon as we can. Please continue to avoid the area of XX, #RCMP NS." I guess that's just going to show that they were being very mindful with the tweets that were coming up and they had 10 different versions before they actually put it out. Weird to me. Were they not frantic? I don't understand. How do you have time to make up draft tweets?

Katie: They probably didn't want to put out misinformation and cause a panic. Panic could cause a lot of damage as well. If people are just out there shooting people because they think it's the killer. If you have this panic, it can make things worse, but they could have definitely done a little bit more. Didn't have to be perfect. They could have provided a bit more.

AJ: Yeah. That is a good point. I mean, I do understand that you have to be mindful with a very public platform. You can't put out misinformation, but I guess their resolution to putting out misinformation was to put out no information, which is worse.

Jennifer: They could have done the simple thing and just put out generic information like, "Stay in your house, lock your doors and shut your windows or shut your blinds. They could have done that not just on Twitter and other social media, but they should have done that as a public alert. They've learned their lessons since then though, I guess.

AJ: Yeah. If God forbid, this happened again, I'm sure they would, but I mean, what's the harm in putting out an alert. You don't want to cause a panic. Most people are going to follow the advice and then people are in their homes and all those people that were along the route, like that woman who was jogging and was shot. All those people wouldn't have been out and about necessarily if they had gotten that alert. I just don't see what the harm would've been in just putting out that alert and dealing with the immediate concern of getting everyone in their homes and then worrying about the panic after the fact, you know what I mean? Yes. There might be a panic, but that's an issue for another day or later that same day after they make sure that he doesn't kill any anybody else. You know what I mean?

Stephanie: Yeah. I was gonna say, I get emergency alerts almost every month now from just random things that are happening in Halifax. The other day I got one, an Amber Alert from Cape Breton.

AJ: Yeah. I just think if right now you got an emergency alert that said, stay in your homes, it's an active shooter situation in Nova Scotia, "Lock your doors, stay inside," you're going to be panicking. Then after the fact, when you realize what happened, you're like, "Okay, thank God, they sent me that because I was at home." You know what I mean? I feel like there's going to be so much less backlash. In the moment you might have panic, but it's going to result in people being thankful for that.

Katie: Yeah. Even like Jennifer was saying, just generic tweets like, "He's left the the Portapique area, so, be on the lookout along that route. They think he's traveling to Halifax. Stay alert in that area. If you're in Halifax, stay in your house, lock your doors." Warning people that he was out there and on the loose would've went a long way.

Jennifer: Like Katie and Stephanie were talking about earlier too, you guys don't use Twitter and not a lot of older people use social media at all. A lot of them don't even have a fucking cell phone for God's sake. How are they going to know to stay inside during the situation? And how are people who don't use social media in general going to know about the situation. It doesn't make any fucking sense to me how the RCMP responded to this at all.

AJ: Mm-hmm and like you said, too, it didn't have to be perfect. If they knew a general idea of where he was just say"In this area, stay inside." They don't have to know the exact coordinates, you know what I mean? Just put out the basic information you have, which is better than nothing.

Katie: Yeah, that's so true. I think the fact that they did use Twitter and that they didn't put as much info as they should have out there that all that misinformation and people saying things that weren't true, made everything worse. Nobody knew what was actually happening. Nobody knew what was the truth. Maybe it did cause panic when they actually had info coming from the police, they would be more informed about this situation rather than just making stuff up and taking stuff from Joe Blow down the lane, what he said, you know what I mean?

Stephanie: If somebody was in my neighborhood shooting people and I get a blast at 12:00 AM at night, that's not going to be the worst thing that could happen.

Katie: I do remember something came out, this is not related at all, but something came out where people were mad because they were getting interrupted by Amber Alerts in the States at all hours of the night. They just didn't want to see this Amber Alert coming through their phone and wake them up. Fuck off!

AJ: Yeah. I also wondered if the time of day played a factor because it was 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock at night, they're thinking like, "Oh well we don't want to put out an alert and wake every one up." You know what I mean? It happened overnight and into the early morning. People are very selfish too. It's like, "It woke me up out of my sleep. Who cares about this missing person or who cares about what's happening? I got woken up." As if it's the worst thing in the world. It was such a rural community too. I feel like maybe if it happened in Halifax at first, would that have changed anything about their response to it? Probably would have. Do you think if it happened in downtown Halifax right away...

Katie: They might have been more ready to handle it, right? Halifax has seen a lot of violence in its day, so those police are probably way more equipped to deal with something like that than, you know, the Portapique RCMP.

AJ: Yeah, that's true. I feel like you're not going to get too far in Halifax if you set a fire it's gonna be reported more quickly. This one was still reported very quickly, but I'm saying, I mean, he could easily have shot someone and gotten out before it was necessarily reported. Right?

Katie: I'm just reading another article from CBC News. This came out April 2022. It's about the police officers that opened fire on that fire hall. One of the officers is saying that he was a hundred percent sure that the perpetrator was in there for some reason. That's why they made that split second decision to get out and shoot. He said, " I was sure that he was, if he got away, he was going to kill more people because there was no doubt in my mind that that's the guy we were looking for." Maybe he was talking about that guy outside. He just was completely sure that was him for some reason. Which I mean, makes sense. He didn't have any confirmation that he was even in that area so he just took it upon himself, thought he was doing a good thing, but it could have turned out really bad. Also another article here talking about the miscommunication with the radios that they were having. Apparently it came out that they were talking about the technical aspects of their radio system. They figured out that a lot of the functions weren't being used or the police didn't actually know how to use their radios completely or use all the functions. That could have been a problem where they actually didn't even hear that woman say something over the radio. They didn't know how to use it. That's a problem.

AJ: Yeah, that's a problem for sure. Also it's just crazy to think that the police are not taking action enough in the area where he actually is, and then you have people taking action too much in the area where he's not, which is at the fire hall. It's just crazy. I don't know.

Katie: Yeah. Just a lot of miscommunication, a lot of unpreparedness and it made for this tragedy to be a lot worse than it should have been.

Jennifer: Speaking of malfunctioning equipment, did you guys read the articles about the fact that the only working helicopter was under maintenance?

Katie: Of course it was. I didn't read that, but yeah, that makes sense.

AJ: Yeah, I did read that. They have one working helicopter and it's under maintenance at the time. Of course.

Jennifer: How convenient, right?

AJ: Yeah. I did read that. I don't think Gabriel would've known that obviously, but it's a crazy coincidence, but also didn't he have, I can't remember if someone said this already, but he did he have access to the police radios? You know how you can listen to the police radio. Anyone can just tune it into the police radio, so it's almost like if he had that, he would've known where they were at and he could've known how to avoid them.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm I was going to say, also I think there's somebody else I know who has one.

Katie: Yeah, I was just going to say that you can buy those radars. People do listen to what the police are talking about, so they know what's going on all the time. That's possible he could have had gotten a hold of that.

Stephanie: He probably had one in his car.

AJ: Probably. I mean, if he's obsessed with the RCMP and has a replica he could have had a police radar. It's just every day the RCMP and Nova Scotia is getting embarrassed because of all that's coming out and it's just making them look really bad. Good, because they deserve to be called out for the shit that they did.

Katie: Yeah. Hopefully they improve their system and more training and just more readiness. God forbid, something like this ever happens again, they'll be more prepared and it won't get to the level that it did next time.

AJ: Yeah. Hopefully there isn't a next time and hopefully if there is, they've learned a thing or two. They should have. Also who knows how much they're probably panicking and they're trying to cover stuff up. They know that all this is going to get released. If I were them, I would not be calm right about now. I'm sure they're not. Always hits home when it's in Nova Scotia. It's also hard to believe I had never even heard of Portapique before this happened. I remember reading it, I'm like, "Where's Portapique." I feel like being in Nova Scotia, you just feel like you know all the communities, because it's not a very big place. A community in your home province and it's just really sad. It's such a mess and it's horrible. I feel bad for all the families who have to relive it every day with this inquiry. Even though they want answers and I'm sure they're happy to a large extent that there is this inquiry, but even if they're not happy with how it's going down. You want to know all the horrible things that happened, but also you don't want to know in some ways, right? You don't want to hear how your loved one could have had their death prevented if the RCMP actually did their job correctly. So really shitty.

Katie: To pay respect to all the victims, because everybody in these cases seems to know the killer's name and so I just want to say the names of every victim just to get their names out there so people are aware. So the 22 people who died April 18th and April 19th, 2020 are: Gina Goulet, Dawn Madson, Jolene Oliver, Frank Gulenchyn, Sean McLeod, Alanna Jenkins, John Zahl, Lisa McCully, Joey Weber, Heidi Stevenson, Heather O'Brien, Jamie Blair, Kristen Beaton, Lillian Hyslop, Joanne Thomas, Peter Bond, Tom Bagley, Greg Blair, Emily Tuck, Joy Bond, Corrie Ellison, and Aaron Tuck.

AJ: So that about does it for the finale episode. I don't know what to say. It's hard to like segue out of, that. Thank you so much for listening in this season. It's been a great season and like I said, we're going to put some resources in the show notes for mental health resources and counseling resources for victims of gun violence. I just want to say thank you to Jennifer for coming on the episode and talking about this case with us. Thank you to all of our listeners who have been with us this whole season and for the seasons before, and we're looking forward to our next season. We're going to start planning our cases for that. During the break, you can still interact with us on all the social medias. If there's any major updates for any of our cases, we'll keep you updated through our social media channels as well. Definitely follow us there. We're on Instagram @crimefamilypodcast. We're on Twitter @crimefamilypod1, and we're on Facebook@ Crime Family Podcast. You can send us an email to crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com if you have a case suggestion or some feedback for us, let us know what you like, what you want to see improved, or any suggestions you have. Like I said, this is going to be the time since we're gonna be planning in the next month or two our cases for the next season. This is a great time to send us those case suggestions, because we're still putting our list together of what cases we want to cover. Also you can go to our website@crimefamilypodcast.ca. You can listen to all our episodes there and you can read transcripts of the episodes. Please also leave us a review on apple podcast or anywhere you listen to our show if there is a review function. Definitely leave us a review. We'd love to know your thoughts and follow us on your favorite podcast app as well. Leave us a star rating or whatever you can do on your podcast app to show your support. We would love that. So thank you guys so much for a great season. We hope you'll come back with us for our next season when we debut that. Again, thank you to Jennifer for coming on for this finale, because it was a great discussion and we'll see you next season. Thanks guys. Bye

Stephanie: Bye.