National Post (National Edition)
OFFICERS WHO SHOT AT BYSTANDER DURING RAMPAGE DEFEND ACTION
Chaotic situation in N.S. mass shooting
Two RCMP officers who shot at a civilian outside a firehall thinking he was the Nova Scotia mass killer were also ready — twice — to pounce on other officers on duty at the time as they frantically searched for the gunman dressed as a Mountie in 2020, a public inquiry heard Thursday.
Constables Terry Brown and Dave Melanson told the inquiry that despite peppering the firehall that was being used as a comfort zone for evacuated civilians with rifle fire, they wouldn't have done anything differently based on the information they had at the time.
The testimony at the inquiry into the shooting deaths of 22 people highlight both the nerve-racking fear caused by gunman Gabriel Wortman wearing a police uniform and driving a replica RCMP cruiser during his 13½-hour rampage from April 18 to 19, 2020, and problems with police communications and information.
“If we know everything we knew now, sure I would do things differently but knowing what I knew at that time I don't think I would have done anything differently,” Brown said.
“I don't think I would do anything different with what I knew,” Melanson said. “It's a great benefit to go back and say if you knew this, if you knew that. I didn't have that benefit. I had a fraction of a second.
“On that day,” Melanson said, pausing and quietly asking the commission for a moment to compose himself, “I gave my all.”
The pair were together in an unmarked police car, a Nissan Altima. They said they thought they stood a better chance of getting close to Wortman if he didn't know right away they were cops. Melanson was driving, the officers told the Mass Casualty Commission.
Brown and Melanson testified together, sitting side-by-side at a single table and sometimes interrupted or interjected each other's account.
Officers were told three times over the radio that the fire hall in Onslow was being used as a comfort centre for residents evacuated from Portapique, where Wortman's rampage began the night before. An RCMP officer in his cruiser was stationed outside it.
The two officers both said they did not know this was the case.
The commission also heard earlier a radio transmission that Wortman's fake police cruiser had a push bar across the front grill, something RCMP vehicles in the province are not equipped with.
Both Brown and Melanson said they don't recall hearing that part of the description.
The pair were approaching the fire hall in Onslow around 10:17 a.m., in search of Wortman, who was still on the loose, driving a replica marked RCMP cruiser with lights and stripes.
When they saw a parked RCMP cruiser they thought it might be the killer. They said they didn't see Const. Dave Gagnon sitting inside, only a man in a reflective safety vest standing beside it.
“We came across a person who looked identical to the description we had. A guy in an orange reflective vest standing next to a police car,” Brown said.
“I acted according to the training. I believed that that person was the threat. I believed that person was going to kill people in the area. I believed that was the person who had just previous killed people in the area and that's why we took the action that we did.”
Melanson said: “I believed he was Gabriel Wortman because there is no reason why we would be wearing that orange vest.” He said the RCMP wear yellow vests not orange.
The officers stopped their car on the road, got out carrying their police issued rifles. Brown said he was “yelling commands to the person,” telling him to show his hands.
Melanson said he was too busy trying to radio other officers to hear what his partner was saying and couldn't confirm the verbal command.
A civilian passing by testified he was waved to drive on by the two officers and heard shooting but not shouted commands to the suspect. Brown said he had nothing to say about that apparent contradiction.
Both officers say that the man in the vest didn't surrender but instead ducked behind the police car, popped up again and ran off. That, they said, confirmed in their mind it was Wortman and they both opened fire from about 88 metres away.
“I was 100 per cent sure it was the perpetrator,” Melanson said.
It wasn't Wortman. It was David Westlake, management coordinator for the Colchester Regional Emergency Management Organization.
There was damage to the firehall, a monument and sign out front and a fire truck inside, but no injuries.
The constables were then shown a photo of Westlake. His vest was yellow but had orange stripes on it.
Both officers also said they did not see orange cones placed in front of the police cruiser and across the parking lot, as seen in photos and video. They said they were too far away to read the call sign decal on the cruiser, as it was different than the one on Wortman's replica.
Neither did they notice there was no front push bar on it.
They both said they were only focused on the man in the vest who they believed was the killer.
“That was where the focus was, that person I perceived to be the threat. Tunnel vision,” said Brown. “The only thing I could see was that police car and the person in an orange reflective vest.”
Under cross-examination by Michael Scott, a lawyer representing several of the victims' families, the officers were asked if they were certain the man in the vest started to run before they fired and not the other way around.
They both said they were sure.
Last year, Nova Scotia's police watchdog, the Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT), found that the two officers had reasonable grounds to believe they were shooting at the killer and concluded that no criminal offences were committed.
Before the shooting at the firehall, Brown and Melanson were ready to pounce on another colleague they spotted sitting in his cruiser parked on the side of a road.
At 9:52 a.m., Brown radioed the sighting.
“Break! Break!” he said on the radio, meaning he was cutting in with an urgent update. “We got eyes on him. Marked PC (police cruiser) on the side of the highway here up ahead of us.”
The officer in the parked cruiser, Const. Rodney MacDonald, realized the situation and radioed back.
“Guys, that's MacDonald. MacDonald, we're just trying to log in to find out where the f--k we're at. We're pulling back out right in front of ya.”
“Copy, copy,” Brown said acknowledging the mix up, adding that they were right behind him.
Afterward, they saw a man in camouflage clothing but not a police uniform holding a long gun, standing beside a road near a police roadblock.
They radioed that we're going to “take him down,” before he was identified as a Halifax police officer.
Asked about it, the officer said they were checking on a potential threat to other officers nearby, who felt exposed, and never thought it was Wortman.
Brown said “take him down” is a figure of speech.
The inquiry previously heard that during the night of April 18, 2020, Wortman disguised himself in a uniform of a Mountie and drove a replica RCMP cruiser as he fatally shot 13 people in Portapique, N.S., where he owned a home, before fleeing to nearby Debert, N.S., where he spent the night.
The next day, he killed another nine people.
I DIDN'T HAVE THAT BENEFIT. I HAD A FRACTION OF A SECOND.