QUOTE OF THE DAY: (Wikipedia): "Police were criticised for not using Alert Ready to warn the public about the attacks, as well as not responding to reports of Wortman's behaviour and previous acts of domestic violence. An investigation into law enforcement's response to the rampage, including the decision not to use Alert Ready, was launched. A public inquiry into the law enforcement response was declared on July 28 following escalating criticism of the investigation's lack of transparency."
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BACKGROUND: '2020 Nova Scotia attacks': (Wikipedia): "On April 18–19, 2020, Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people and injuring three others before he was shot and killed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Enfield. For most of the thirteen-hour crime spree, Wortman impersonated a police officer by driving a replica police car and wearing a police uniform. On December 4, three people, including Wortman's spouse, were charged with supplying him with ammunition later used in the attacks. Police were criticised for not using Alert Ready to warn the public about the attacks, as well as not responding to reports of Wortman's behaviour and previous acts of domestic violence. An investigation into law enforcement's response to the rampage, including the decision not to use Alert Ready, was launched. A public inquiry into the law enforcement response was declared on July 28 following escalating criticism of the investigation's lack of transparency."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: (Commentary): "There might be good reasons for encrypting police radio — though given that police regularly use cell phones to communicate, I doubt it — but if so, then communications to the public need to be broadened considerably. The mass murders are the perfect tragic example of the problem. It wouldn’t have mattered that the RCMP didn’t alert the public about the killer had the police radio communications been open — news media would have done the job for them, and more effectively, over multiple platforms. But with encryption, that crucial information was kept from the public entirely. My guess is the RCMP communication professionals were off work for the night. When they came to work in the morning, they went through a ponderous decision tree before multiple more murders got them to issue clear information to the public. But even then it was on just one platform, Twitter, and of course, as we know, the emergency alert system was never activated. If there is no one in place to make quick decisions about when and what to inform the public about, or if that process is so cumbersome as to make it irrelevant, then police shouldn’t be encrypting their communications at all.
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COMMENTARY: "Relying on junk science, the RCMP made a terrible decision during the mass murders," Reporter Tim Bousquet concludes in a commentary in 'The Halifax Examiner, published on April 8, 2022, headed 'Police thought killer was “closure motivated.” (The Halifax Examiner was founded by investigative reporter Tim Bousquet...Bousquet is responsible for fearless investigative reporting that makes a difference, and the Halifax Examiner continues that tradition. It is an independent, adversarial news site devoted to holding the powerful accountable."
GIST: (This item refers to suicide.) "One point that I don’t think I’ve stressed enough about the mass murders of April 18/19 is that in the middle of the night, after the Portapique murders but before the killing resumed on Hunter Road, police were convinced that the killer had killed himself.
This was documented in the notes of Staff Sergeant Jeff West, the critical incident commander that night. In the section of the notes excerpted below, this is who West refers to:
“HALLIDAY” is Staff Sergeant Steve Halliday
“I/C” is Incident Commander, so West himself
“CNT” is Crisis Negotiating Team, which is a team of one — Staff Sergeant Al Carroll
“victim” is Greg Blair
“the wife” is Jamie Blair.
“MacCULLUM” is Staff Sergeant Addie MacCullum
0432 hrs- HALLIDAY to I/C and group, from the interviews suspect shoots victim on the deck, shoots the dog, shoots the wife, saw him, knows him and he drove away in a ford Taurus. He has done all this on the way to a familiar area to do himself in. There are no more fires, he was there as the fires were going up.
CNT advised group, suspect appears “Closure Motivated” and that he has had no luck in making contact. I/C noted cars burned, his place is burned and questioned was the Mercedes burned?
MacCALLUM to group advised members did not see a Mercedes.
At 4:32am, West was at the Great Village Fire Hall command post. The officers understood that both the killer and Lisa Banfield’s Mercedes were unaccounted for, but that doesn’t seem to have overly bothered them. Halliday posited that the killer had killed himself. Carroll, the crisis negotiator, agreed, saying the killer appeared to be “closure motivated.”
“Closure motivated” is a term used by police negotiators.
As explained in this Ottawa Citizen article:
"The calls they [crisis negotiator teams] respond to typically involve three types of behaviours that dictate their response. An instrumental person,Ottawa Police Sgt. Richard] Dugal said, is somebody who uses the situation or people to bargain.
It’s the bank robber who takes hostages and wants a specific dollar amount to release them. That person knows they need to communicate through the police and the people involved are bargaining chips, Dugal said.
Then, there is an expressive person, someone who is highly emotionally involved in what’s happening. They have connections to other people involved, like family members or former lovers. Oftentimes, expressive people are the ones involved in what police call a “barricaded person” call, the quintessential person in distress who may or may not have a diagnosed mental illness and who has barricaded themselves while threatening harm.
“They just come to their worst day for a number of factors,” Dugal said.
Finally, there is the high-risk person, sometimes referred to as “closure-motivated,” who is suicidal or homicidal and is presenting, through their previous history, words or gestures that “they are at imminent risk of violence against themselves or others,” Dugal said."
I want to know more about the training that crisis negotiators get. It looks a lot like other junk science regularly accepted by cops. I mean, how much can be learned in a two-day training seminar that involves several different courses? In the wrongful conviction community, “40-hour experts” are routinely lambasted:
Advanced training and certifications are widely offered to police who learn complex scientific methods in a matter of hours or days, compared to years of formal education required for similar experts in other fields. Designations such as “Certified Fire & Explosion investigator” or “Blood Spatter Analyst” offer the public and police a false sense of expertise. Judges and jurors often assume that, due to the nature and complexity of these fields, training was extensive. This is incorrect.
Can a cop with no experience in psychology or psychiatry — Al Carroll in this case — assess the psychological state of a mass murderer he had never met or talked to, on the fly in the middle of killing spree, based solely on a couple of days of lectures he had taken in a hotel conference room years before? Seems doubtful.
But legitimacy of the crisis negotiating training aside, this is a case of supposition getting ahead of the facts: in the early morning hours of April 19, there was no evidence — none — that the killer had killed himself. It was just a couple of cops (Carroll and Halliday) guessing.
And yet, it appears that that guess resulted in a lackadaisical approach to establishing roadblocks around Portapique and the decision to not alert the public about the killer. And so, nine more people were murdered.
Another aspect of the police response that should be investigated is police communications.
It used to be that every newsroom had a radio scanner, and some unfortunate overnight reporter was tasked with chasing down ambulance, fire, and police calls.
But some years ago, police departments across Nova Scotia, including the RCMP, started encrypting their radio communications, and so when the Portapique murders happened, there was no reporter listening in as the name of the killer and the fact that he was unaccounted for was broadcast.
There might be good reasons for encrypting police radio — though given that police regularly use cell phones to communicate, I doubt it — but if so, then communications to the public need to be broadened considerably.
The mass murders are the perfect tragic example of the problem. It wouldn’t have mattered that the RCMP didn’t alert the public about the killer had the police radio communications been open — news media would have done the job for them, and more effectively, over multiple platforms. But with encryption, that crucial information was kept from the public entirely.
My guess is the RCMP communication professionals were off work for the night. When they came to work in the morning, they went through a ponderous decision tree before multiple more murders got them to issue clear information to the public. But even then it was on just one platform, Twitter, and of course, as we know, the emergency alert system was never activated.
If there is no one in place to make quick decisions about when and what to inform the public about, or if that process is so cumbersome as to make it irrelevant, then police shouldn’t be encrypting their communications at all."
The entire commentary can be read at:
relying-on-junk-science-the-rcmp-made-a-terrible-decision-during-the-mass-murders
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
