TV show four days before rampage features eerie similarity
FBI procedural Ironbound aired on Global
A man named Gabriel goes on a murderous spree while wearing his police uniform. Starting off in a small town, he shoots multiple people, including police officers. He appears obsessed with the woman he calls his girlfriend. As a manhunt closes in on him, he sets a house on fire.
This is not a recap of the awful events in Nova Scotia over the weekend. It is instead a recap of a scripted TV drama that aired in prime time in Nova Scotia just four days before Gabriel Wortman donned a police uniform and went on his rampage that left at least 23 people dead, the worst mass shooting in Canadian history.
The RCMP have said they did not find a note explaining his actions and won’t speculate on his possible motive. An RCMP spokesperson did not respond to a request asking if they had any evidence suggesting Wortman saw the show. Whether he saw it and it influenced him may be an unknowable question.
But if nothing else, it’s a very eerie coincidence — particularly during a pandemic when people are shut indoors and watching more television than ever.
The episode, called Ironbound, appeared on the CBS drama FBI: Most Wanted, a new show from the creators of the Law and Order universe. It was episode 11 of the show’s inaugural season, and part of a doubleheader of new episodes airing on Tuesday, April 14. In Canada, the show is carried nationally by Global TV and is available on all cable providers and even over-the-air.
Ironbound features the story of Gabriel Clark, a small- town police officer who puts on his uniform one evening and starts shooting people, including three police officers and one civilian. Other attempts are foiled.
Parts of the plot don’t have any obvious connection to Wortman. In the show Clark is a police officer, is much younger than Wortman, and was rejected from a large department due to being a whistleblower about a botched drug raid by other officers. The show has some sympathy for Clark’s character, as the FBI discovers he was correct to blow the whistle and was unfairly punished. The FBI try to convince him to stop the killing by promising to investigate the botched raid.
“Truth before all,” an FBI agent tells him after finding him. “You lived it.”
“I killed for it,” Clark responds, and refuses to surrender.
In the climactic scene, Clark runs inside an old farmhouse, lights himself on fire, and the fire spreads along the floor. The FBI bust in, extinguish the flames and Clark survives.
Although the Law and Order shows are known for ripping from the headlines, the Gabriel Clark FBI episode seems to be entirely fictional. But there are multiples aspects with a bizarre resemblance to the real- life rampage, even aside from the fact both men are named Gabriel and go on a shooting spree wearing a police uniform.
On Thursday, Global News reported Wortman got into a violent fight with his girlfriend on Saturday night, but his girlfriend managed to escape and hide in the woods. The shootings started afterward. A neighbour had previously told media the relationship was troubled. “He had an obsession with his girlfriend,” Nancy Hudson said. “Just being jealous about things with her. I think that’s where things got in the way.”
In the show, it’s revealed that Clark has been telling people he has a girlfriend and even has a picture of her to show, despite the fact they really broke up years ago and she’s now married to someone else. “His moods were too hard to deal with,” she tells the FBI. Clark blames the failed relationship on the fallout from his whistle-blowing.
The RCMP has refused to say how Wortman may have known his victims or chosen who to kill, but one person interviewed by the Globe and Mail said Wortman appears to have had a target list. Furthermore, some of his victims lived far away, but Wortman still sought them out.
In the TV show, there is no list shown but Clark is tracking down people who derailed his career. Unlike Clark, Wortman does not appear to have been explicitly targeting officers, but he shot and killed RCMP Const. Heidi Stevenson and injured Const. Chad Morrison.
During his rampage, Wortman set multiple homes on fire and police have been finding bodies in the burnt remains. He also shot and killed people who ran to help with the fires. In the TV show, Clark lights a large fire in the farmhouse he’s camped out in, but it appears to be a suicide attempt and the house survives intact.
All of this may be nothing more than a strange coincidence. On the other hand, Wortman was known to be obsessed with police to the point where he repainted police cars and acquired a real RCMP uniform. It’s very conceivable that such a person would be tuned in to an FBI procedural on a Tuesday night, especially with a pandemic raging.
For now, Wortman’s motivation remains shrouded in mystery. With twin investigations underway by the RCMP and the Serious Incident Response Team (which investigates police use of force), it may be months until we have clear answers for why he killed so many people — if they ever come.