Confusion, errors marred police communications after family's killing
Ottawa police admit they made mistakes last week when communicating key information about the city's worst mass killing in recent history.
Six people, including a mother, her four young chil‐ dren and a family acquain‐ tance, were found dead in‐ side a townhouse in the south Ottawa suburb of Bar‐ rhaven on March 6. The woman's husband and father of the children remains in hospital.
A 19-year-old man who was living with the family is in custody facing six counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
According to police, they began receiving calls at 10:52 p.m. Wednesday and respon‐ ded minutes later. In court, prosecutors said the accused was in custody around 11 p.m.
The day after the tragedy, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) called the killings a "mass shooting" when no guns were involved, repeat‐ edly misspelled the victims' names and misidentified the accused.
Chief referred to 'mass shooting'
On Thursday morning during a live, nationally broadcast interview on CBC, OPS Chief Eric Stubbs mistak‐ enly called the killings a "mass shooting."
During a news conference that afternoon, Stubbs misidentified the man in cus‐ tody as "Frank D'Souza." Later that day Febrio DeZoysa, a 19-year-old Sri Lankan national who had come to Canada as a stu‐ dent, was officially charged.
After the news conference on Thursday, OPS issued five separate emails to correct the victims' names they'd provided earlier that day.
Their first attempt con‐ tained errors in three of the six names. The second email contained different errors in the same three names.
A third email corrected two names and the age of a victim. After CBC flagged more errors, OPS replied with yet another correction.
Then, at 3 p.m., they issued a final version.
'Quickly evolving' inves‐ tigation
In a statement to CBC, OPS admitted the mistakes and said homicides are "very complex files to investigate and quickly evolving."
In the case of the Bar‐ rhaven killings, police said there were "multiple credible sources consulted in the col‐ lating of names, and some in‐ formation we received was wrong," OPS said.
"We also made mistakes when we communicated key information about the tragic deaths. That is an inherent risk of the fast paced and timely communications we strive to deliver to Ottawa residents."
The statement said re‐ sponding officers and investi‐ gators diligently collect infor‐ mation in a process involving contacting "multiple sources, including involved persons (victims/suspects), witnesses, family members and of course official govern‐ ment/databases."
"Erroneous information is sometimes communicated to police and we can also make mistakes when communicat‐ ing with the community and media," OPS said. "When that happens, we correct it as soon as possible."
Police communications 'incredibly problematic'
Christopher Schneider, a professor of criminology at Brandon University in Mani‐ toba, said communications by Ottawa police were "in‐ credibly problematic" in this case.
"Often one's competence is judged by their commu‐ nicative performance," Schneider said. "If the police are not communicating effec‐ tively through traditional media, social media, with the community, that leads to the public perception of police incompetence."
That in turn "could possi‐ bly extend to an erosion of confidence and trust in polic‐ ing," he said.
Schneider said ineffective communication from police is magnified when it involves immigrant, refugee and racialized communities, in‐ cluding Indigenous ones.
"These community groups, they talk among themselves and they see this when it comes out in media, they see that the police are not effectively communicat‐ ing in a tragic, outrageous cir‐ cumstance like this," he said.
"This leads to a continuing rotation and distrust in police and policing."
Police facing 'tremen‐ dous pressure'
Darryl Davies, a professor of criminology at Carleton University, said Ottawa police and other first responders would have faced "tremen‐ dous pressure" as they ar‐ rived at the crime scene.
"That probably con‐ tributed to the lack of infor‐ mation and consistency of in‐ formation that subsequently came out," Davies said, not‐ ing their priority would be lo‐ cating victims and hunting for the suspect.
"They were probably, un‐ derstandably, totally caught off guard, and the shock and the horror of witnessing something like that would have unbelievable ramifica‐ tions on the individuals who are there."
Davies said that trauma "probably more than any‐ thing overshadowed any con‐ sistency or communication to the public, because it would have just been so horrific."
He said even officers pre‐ pared with the best possible training would face a "horrific challenge" just trying to pro‐ cess the information.
"The Ottawa police did the best they could under the circumstances, given the hor‐ rific nature of the events and how they unfolded."
But Davies also said police need better training in com‐ municating the details of such tragedies to the public.
"Police as a whole need to have people who are special‐ ized in communications. I think they should be trained in how to deal with these sit‐ uations," he said.