Former N.L. premier says he should not have called officer in police shooting
A former premier admits he was wrong to contact a member of his security detail who killed a man, calling it a wellintentioned but mistaken show of concern.
Paul Davis told the inquiry into Don Dunphy’s death Friday that he called Const. Joe Smyth of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary in the hours after the shooting on Easter Sunday 2015.
“I realized Joe Smyth was likely having the worst day of his life,” he said. “I just felt from a human perspective that it would be right to reach out to him and let him know I was thinking about him.”
Davis, a former RNC officer before he entered politics in 2010, said Smyth was always a calm and professional colleague but was not a personal friend. He said the phone call was brief and they did not discuss the shooting in detail.
Davis recalled that Smyth told him he did what he had to do.
The former premier did not call the Dunphy family but offered his condolences publicly the following day.
Smyth has testified he shot Dunphy, 59, once in the chest and twice in the head when he suddenly aimed a rifle at him from the side of his recliner.
Smyth had gone alone to Dunphy’s home in Mitchell’s Brook after staff in Davis’s office flagged a single post on Twitter that was deemed
“of concern.”
Smyth is the only witness to the deadly confrontation in RCMP jurisdiction. The Mounties found it was reasonable use of force and laid no charges.
“It was a definite shock to me,” Davis testified, recalling how he learned that Sunday afternoon of the shooting from his thenchief of staff, Joe Browne, the former chief of the RNC.
Davis said disturbing speculation took off on social media.
“Very quickly there were accusations publicly of me being behind this,” including suggestions he’d ordered Dunphy’s “assassination,” he said. Davis told reporters the next day about his call to Smyth, which he said
stirred that public speculation and complicated matters.
Dunphy was an injured worker who aired his disgust with workers’ compensation on call-in radio shows and social media. He had sent the tweet as part of a longer string of comments just over two days before he died.
They accused Davis and one of his cabinet ministers of ignoring the poor.
“I hope there is a God, I think I (see) him work on two garbage MHAs who laughed at poor (people),” Dunphy tweeted. “Won’t mention names this time, 2 prick dead MHAs might have good family members I may hurt.”