Experts raise questions about RCMP response
Social media updated, but no emergency alert
OTTAWA • Experts say RCMP officials need to be more forthcoming about what could have been a critical fault in their response to a mass murder in rural Nova Scotia last weekend, where a rogue gunman killed at least 22 people over a 14-hour rampage.
Families of the murder victims and many observers have raised questions over why Nova Scotia RCMP did not issue an emergency alert over mobile phones and televisions to warn that the killer was on the loose, despite having issued the same type of warning just one week earlier urging people to stay home as a way to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The federal police force, meanwhile, has been evasive in responses about a potential communication breakdown, and risks losing the trust of the public if they do not acknowledge possible missteps, experts say,
“The more time you wait to give an answer, the more difficult it is to explain why you didn’t use the dedicated alert system,” said Yannick Hémond, risk-management specialist and professor at Université du Québec à Montréal. “And it’s taken too long for them to provide answers,” he said.
Questions about the police force’s response were repeated after Nova Scotia Premier Stephen Mcneil on Wednesday said the provincial Emergency Management Office (EMO) reached out to the RCMP “a number of times” about issuing an emergency alert Sunday morning. By the time RCMP killed the gunman, 51-yearold Gabriel Wortman, at 11:26 a.m., the police force was still deliberating over the wording of a Red Alert emergency notification.
“I think in order to gain the trust of the public they need to explain why they didn’t use the system and be transparent about it,” Hémond said. “They need to ultimately take the fault for that.”
Family and other observers are trying to determine the reasons behind the more than one-hour delay, particularly when the Nova Scotia RCMP Twitter account had been posting tweets about the shooting suspect Saturday night. But communications between the provincial government and RCMP headquarters seemed to complicate the issuance of an alert.
“Somewhere, somehow, they hit a wall,” said Terry Flynn, a crisis and risk communications expert at Mcmaster University.
Flynn, like Hémond, stressed that outside observers do not often appreciate the complexity of active shooter events, and the immense strain it places on those on the frontlines who are trying to secure reliable information.
Flynn said such instances are always highly unexpected, which adds to the uncertainties facing police on the ground.
“No one thinks on a Saturday evening in rural Nova Scotia during COVID-19 that we’re going to have the largest mass shooting in Canadian history,” he said.
Even so, he says senior police officials ought to have acknowledged any potential shortfalls.
“It would have been helpful yesterday if someone had said: ‘we certainly could have done better.’ It’s important for leadership to recognize that more could have been done.”
Brian Sauvé, president of the National Police Federation, said current speculation over any potential shortfalls is premature. The RCMP has launched an investigation into its handling of the matter.
“Some are asking questions about difficult senior operational decisions, without considering how little information is available to our first responders on the ground protecting the public in the middle of a rapidly evolving and highly dangerous crisis,” Sauvé said in a written statement Thursday.
“Early speculation in advance of the investigation findings damages the morale of the brave men and women who responded to this situation, and who are grieving the loss of their colleague and community members.”
On Wednesday, Nova Scotia RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather said police had been drafting an emergency alert when Wortman was killed just before noon on Sunday. The statements conveyed a convoluted chain of command before an alert could be issued.
“The original call to the RCMP was to one of our members at headquarters. There was then a series of phone calls that had to be made to find the officer in charge, then speak to the incident commander, have a conversation about the issuing of a message. So a lot of the delay was based on communications between the EMO and the various officers,” Leather said. “And then a discussion about how the message would be constructed and what it would say. In that hour and a bit of consultation, the subject was killed.”
THEY NEED TO EXPLAIN WHY THEY DIDN’T USE THE SYSTEM AND BE TRANSPARENT ABOUT IT.