Friends and clients
of denturist Gabriel Wortman, seen here in a photo from his Facebook
profile, have a hard time reconciling the person they knew with the
string of crimes committed between Saturday night and Sunday morning,
leading to a final confrontation with police at the Enfield Big Stop. -
Facebook
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The
gunman behind the mass shooting in Nova Scotia was assembling the
pieces for the fake police cruiser used in his rampage more than a year
before the deadly attack, newly released court documents say.
A
heavily redacted RCMP application for a search warrant reveals how
Gabriel Wortman used an online PayPal account to purchase equipment for
the mock RCMP vehicle he drove in the April 18-19 killings that left 22
people dead in the province. An RCMP officer subsequently killed him at a
gas station in Enfield.
The court documents were released Monday through a continuing legal effort from The Globe and Mail and other media outlets.
The
documents also include more warnings from witnesses – and the gunman
himself – about his paranoid behaviour in the early days of the global
pandemic, as the 51-year-old denturist began stockpiling ammunition and
significant amounts of cash.
In
one e-mail obtained by the RCMP that was sent in March, about a month
before the worst mass shooting in Canadian history, Mr. Wortman said he
was preparing for the worst because COVID-19 would make people desperate
“once the money runs out." He’d personally withdrawn $475,000 from the
bank in preparation for what he thought would be the collapse of the
financial system, one witness told police.
“Thank
God we are well-armed," Mr. Wortman wrote. The grim comment is
contained in the court documents that offer revealing insights into the
gunman’s activities and behaviour. According to the RCMP, Mr. Wortman’s
March 19 e-mail “talked about how the virus was huge and people have not
dealt with something as big as it was.”
The
court records also show that the gunman crossed the New Brunswick-Maine
border multiple times in April and May of 2019, apparently to pick up
police gear such as a siren, light bar and battering ram, which he had
purchased online and had delivered to a U.S. postal box. He used
companies such as Amazon, Kijiji and eBay to make his cruiser look as
real as possible.
There’s
also more evidence that warning signs surrounded Mr. Wortman long
before his attack. The documents include statements from an unnamed
friend of Aaron Tuck, one of the gunman’s neighbours and first victims.
After the shootings, the friend told police that Mr. Tuck described
violent altercations involving Mr. Wortman when he was drinking, and
said he “would terrorize people.”
The
man also described seeing a look-alike police vehicle in the man’s
garage in 2019. Mr. Wortman told the man he was fixing up the fake
cruiser to be used in “parades,” according to the document.
The
RCMP have released few details about the firearms Mr. Wortman used
during his 13-hour rampage, which started in the village of Portapique,
N.S., on the night of April 18.
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Having
killed 13 people in the village, most of them friends and neighbours,
he fled the area disguised as a Mountie and driving a vehicle that
looked exactly like an RCMP cruiser.
The
Mounties earlier confirmed that the killer had two semi-automatic
handguns and two semi-automatic rifles, but they declined to release
further details owing to their continuing investigation.
Gun-control
advocates have said details about the firearms are important to the
discussion about the federal government’s recent move to ban 1,500 types
of military-style assault weapons.
However,
the Mounties have confirmed that the gunman had a fifth firearm, which
he took from RCMP Constable Heidi Stevenson after he rammed his vehicle
into her cruiser and then fatally shot her in an exchange of gunfire.
The
RCMP warrant application includes fleeting references to the
acquisition of weapons, but the redactions make it impossible to
decipher how he obtained the four other weapons.
The
documents say Mr. Wortman did not have any firearms registered on the
Restricted Weapons Registration System, the Canadian Firearms
Information System or something called the Cognos client application
system.
The court
records also contain references to e-mails between the gunman and Peter
Griffon, the man who helped the killer create the decals for the mock
RCMP cruiser.
Excerpts
from e-mails found on Mr. Griffon’s cellphone indicate that on the
morning of April 18, the day the killing started, Mr. Wortman told Mr.
Griffon that he was going to go for a drive with his partner, whose name
is redacted, to celebrate their anniversary. He also refers to
unspecified work the two men would do the following day.
On
July 26 and July 31, 2019, Mr. Griffon sent photos to Mr. Wortman
showing a white car with RCMP decals on it. Previously released
information confirms that the vehicle Mr. Wortman used to evade police
on April 18-19 was purchased on July 3, 2019.
Mr.
Griffon, who was on parole from prison at the time, later provided a
statement to police describing how he had made the decals for Mr.
Wortman’s vehicle. Previously convicted of possession of cocaine for the
purpose of trafficking in 2017, Mr. Griffon’s parole was revoked when
the National Parole Board found out about his work with Mr. Wortman.
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Frank at the massive Cockup Commission By Paul Palango
April 5, 2023
Private: Er, that’s it?! Frank at the Massive Cockup Commission
BY PAUL PALANGO
In
the 975 days from the announcement of its creation to the tabling of
its final report, the public inquiry into the murder of 22 Nova Scotians
by demented denturist Gabriel Wortman managed to spend tens of millions of dollars in its attempt to not get to the bottom of the story.
Not?
To
the contrary, it might have appeared to some in the public that the
RCMP received a very public flogging after the Mass Casualty Commission
released its final report – Turning the Tide Together — on March 30 in Truro, NS.
The
seven-volume report, running a little more than 3,000 pages painted a
vivid picture of, among other things, an undermanned, under-supervised,
overly bureaucratic, dysfunctional, incompetent and deceptive police
service.
Essentially, it read something like this:
“The
RCMP didn’t do this … the RCMP didn’t do that. The RCMP failed to do
this. The RCMP failed to do that. The RCMP was unprepared. A supervisor
was drunk. Communications systems were obsolete. The RCMP policy binder
ran to 4,976 pages. The (Nova Scotia) addendum was 929 pages. The RCMP
didn’t have maps of the community. The RCMP didn’t know the area. The
RCMP didn’t put out a public warning. The RCMP didn’t seek help from
others. The RCMP didn’t do an operational review after the fact. The
RCMP mislead….” etc., etc., etc.
So, what’s new?
Anyone
who has been following the RCMP’s tragic trajectory over the past 30
years already knows that – Gustafson Lake, the death of Thomas Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport, the shooting of Ian Bush in British Columbia, the murders of four Mounties in Mayerthorpe, Alberta and three more in Moncton. Maher Arar.
The Pension Scandal. The list is long and growing. The RCMP has a near
perfect record of failed investigations when it comes to politically
connected federal matters – The WE affair, SNC Lavalin and Project
Sidewinder and all those pesky Chinese spies, among others.
The
RCMP has proven that it is a spent force. Multiple government reports
have documented it all. Remember? “Broken culture.” “Unsustainable.”
“Harassment.” “Bullying.” Sexist.” “Racist.”
One of the 275 people in attendance at the Best Western conference and convention centre was a glum-faced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He, along with Cabinet Ministers Marco Mendocino and Sean Fraser, sucked it all in before Trudeau told reporters that he had a plan for change.“Changes are coming,” Trudeau said.
What’s changes?
A week earlier Trudeau said that he was going to appoint “the perfect (his
emphasis) person” as the force’s next commissioner. Trudeau continues
to believe that one person can fix everything, as if putting Lewis Hamilton
behind the wheel of a broken down, dilapidated and obsolete farm
tractor would instantly make it a Formula One winner. What Trudeau
really meant, insiders are saying, is that he’s going full virtue signal
and is eager to appoint someone with an ounce of Indigenous blood – or
more – to head up the Mounties.
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston
said he was going to do something, as well, but nobody is sure what
that might be. After all, Houston’s government convinced the entire Nova
Scotia Assembly to give former Assistant Commissioner Leona (Lee) Bergerman
a virtual 21-gun salute at the end of her inglorious term as the head
of the RCMP. She retired in the fall of 2021, just ahead of the planned
opening of the Mass Casualty Commission hearings.
Even
Though these might appear to be dark days for the RCMP, all is not as
it might seem. The RCMP and its government enablers have been attempting
to groom public opinion from the moment two Mounties gunned down
Wortman at the appropriately named Irving Big Stop in Enfield, Nova
Scotia.
“The suspect is in custody,” the RCMP tweeted.
He
was more than “in custody.” He had been dead, riddled with 23 bullets,
for about three hours, until the Mounties coyly admitted that the photos
of him lying stone cold on the asphalt at the Big Stop were accurate.
Remember how Chief Superintendent Chris Leather
said that if he had to replay that weekend all over again, “I wouldn’t
change a thing.” He even insisted that the RCMP would rely on Twitter to
alert sleeping citizens that a killer was running the roads in their
neighbourhood, should it come to that.
Or there was this gem from RCMP union boss Brian Sauvé to the Globe and Mail’sGreg Mercer, just before Mounties were going to begin testifying before the Mass Casualty Commission in April 2022.
“Brian
Sauvé,” Mercer wrote, “says criticism of police actions connected to
the Nova Scotia mass shooting that left 22 people dead in April 2020
have been unfair, and that the force’s handling of the initial attack
was an ‘almost textbook response.’
Sauve
continued: “The average Canadian today has the benefit of hindsight. If
we look at all the information available to us, we are going to
armchair quarterback.”
Yes, that’s the story the RCMP was sticking to: “a textbook response.”
From the moment then Public Safety Minister Bill Blair
caved to public demands to set up a public inquiry, it has been evident
that the Mass Casualty Commission was going to tread softly and wield a
wet noodle to get its way.
The Commission chair was Michael MacDonald, former Chief Justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. Many considered him to be a Liberal hack. His nephew, Andrew MacDonald,
was shot by Wortman that Saturday night, but escaped from Portapique.
On the bench, MacDonald was involved in controversial decisions, the
most provocative being presiding over the exonerations of both former
Nova Scotia Premier Gerald Regan over a bevy of sex related charges and Hells Angels hitman Dany Kane, who killed 11 people while working as an informant for the RCMP.
One of MacDonald’s co-Commissioners was former Fredericton Police chief Leanne Fitch, who was sitting on the RCMP Management Advisory Board at the time of her appointment. The other was Dr. Kim Stanton,
a Toronto lawyer, focused on constitutional and aboriginal law. At the
time of her appointment, Stanton was the legal director of the Women’s
Legal Education and Actions Fund.
The
Commission took a “trauma-informed” approach. Just about everyone was
deemed to be a victim, especially the police officers. Exceptions were
made for a few, like civilian Max Liberatore, who were grilled mercilessly about legally selling government equipment to Wortman.
Since
there is no structure in Canada for police to investigate police, the
calling of a public inquiry might seem to be an alternate way to provide
accountability, but not in this case. The Commission did not permit
cross examination and was not interested in laying blame or finding
fault, which begs the question of what the inquiry was actually trying
to do.
MacDonald explained his
rationale this way. “It was necessary for Commission counsel to
reinforce the inquisitorial process and address apparent
misunderstandings among Participants continually throughout the working
meetings. This required clarifying the role of Commission counsel as
neutral facilitators who were tasked to gather and analyze evidence in a
fair and impartial manner, rather than as prosecutors tasked with
finding blame or fault.”
MacDonald
also said that he didn’t believe that cross-examination was the only
way to get to the truth. He indicated that based upon his own
experience, he knew what the truth was when he heard it.
Although it might appear that the Mass Casualty Commission held extensive hearings, that was not the case.
Throughout
2022 there were 76 public sessions, but many of them were round table
discussions. Witnesses were allowed to “testify” together or with
supporters by their side. Stories were not tested. Other leads were not
broached.
Here are some of the important curious matters that the Commission either didn’t explore or swept under the rug:
The destruction of evidence by the RCMP. Nova Scotia Frank, in concert with the Nighttime Podcast with Jordan Bonaparte
revealed in late 2020 that RCMP documents indicated the force had
been destroying evidence in the Wortman case. The RCMP confirmed
the validity of the documents. The Commission made no real attempt
to find out what was being destroyed or by whom;
A related area that the Commission didn’t explore to any
degree was the appointment, duties and activities of Chief
Superintendent John Robin and former RCMP sergeant Mike Butcher
to act as conduits between the force and the MCC. Robin even had a
business card claiming that he was working with the MCC. Butcher
is the husband of then Assistant Commissioner Bergerman and Robin
was married to then Chief Superintendent Janis Grey.
Various sources in policing said that Wortman or someone
close to him was a confidential informant or police agent. There
have also been suggestions of a CSIS connection. The RCMP denied
this. While it didn’t pursue this angle to any degree, it is
interesting to note that the Commission stated in its final report
that it could not find evidence one way or the other about
Wortman’s possible connections to the police;
The Serious Incident Response Team issued two reports that
were at best misleading, at worst mere stenography that was
dictated by the RCMP. The first involved the crazy shootup of the
Onslow-Belmont firehall on the morning of April 19, 2020 when two
Mounties opened up on a fellow Mountie and a EMS worker. The second
report involved the apparent execution of Wortman by two Mounties.
Video tape from two gas stations, obtained by Frank
and the Nighttime Podcast, refuted what was described in the SIRT
report. The Commission did not call then SIRT director Felix Cacchione
to testify about the discrepancies. However, in its final report,
the Commission said police oversight bodies such as SIRT should be
expanded and better funded. Meanwhile, the Commission called in the
Ontario Provincial Police to investigate the source of the release
of both 911 tapes and the gas station videos;
A number of RCMP officers in the field that day were
undertrained or had failed their carbine qualifications, which
meant they could not join the pursuit of Wortman. One of those was
Constable Heidi Stevenson,
who was Wortman’s 20th victim. Were the RCMP’s actions
criminal? The Commission had the power to refer anything it deemed
criminal to the police for further investigation.
In its final report the Commission complained that the RCMP
continued to resist providing documents. “There was a lack of
access to RCMP documents by the Commission…. We can’t understand
what the RCMP was doing and why,” the Commission states.
That’s the thing, isn’t it?
The
Commission took its sweet time to get going. It delayed its hearings
until the beginning of 2022. The Commissioners did everything they could
to be “trauma informed” and not stress out anyone, but in the end they
ran out of time, by design, it seems.
As
MacDonald put it on Page 160 of Volume 7: “We did not want the
Commission’s work to drag on for years, because that might only prolong
the grieving process for many people.”
There are still many answers to be had and we are in the market to receive them.
Paul
Palango is the author of four books on the RCMP. The most recent was
the Canadian bestseller: 22 Murders: Investigating the Massacres,
Cover-Up and Obstacles to Justice in Nova Scotia. (Random House).
WHEN POLICE LIES GO UNCHECKED DIFFICULT QUESTIONS ARISE. CLINTON ELLISON HAS ONE FOR THE RCMP, by Paul Palango
WHEN POLICE LIES GO UNCHECKED DIFFICULT QUESTIONS ARISE. CLINTON ELLISON HAS ONE FOR THE RCMP
by Paul Palango
No one who saw it on television could likely ever forget the interview by the CBC’s Brett Ruskin with Clinton Ellison conducted at the top of Portapique Beach Road, a few days after the dual massacres that left 22 Nova Scotians
dead on the weekend of April 18 and 19, 2020.The teary eyed and
grieving Ellison talked about how he had stumbled upon the body of his
dead brother, Corrie, ran from what he thought was gunman Gabriel Wortman and hid in the woods for almost four hours cowering in fear for his life.Months later, Ellison went on Facebook and laid out his pain for everyone to see, apologizing abjectly to the RCMP
for any suggestion that he might have said something critical about
them. He believed in the police, he said, and later added that he had
faith in the Mass Casualty Commission to get to the truth when it
finally begins hearings sometime in the fall. Ellison does not talk to
the media and has not responded to my efforts to contact him.Now, there
is another twist which has sent Ellison into a tortured spin again.It
arrived in a sworn affidavit by RCMP Superintendent Darren Campbell as part of the force’s statement of defense to a class-action claim mounted by lawyers Robert Pineo and Sandra McCulloch
on behalf of the families of the 22 murder victims. The RCMP were
forced by a judge to produce the statement of defense, which it did on
June 3. The Mounties appeared to have been ragging the puck, as it were,
perhaps hoping that everyone would forget what the RCMP did and didn’t
do that terrible weekend.In his affidavit, which was made public on June
15, Campbell attempts to lay out a series of scenarios which appear to
show that the RCMP was much more proactive in Portapique
that night than it or anyone else had indicated in the intervening 14
months.For example, Campbell said, first Mounties arrived in Portapique
at 10:26 p.m. Two eventually made their way on foot into the community
“pursuant to their Immediate Action Rapid Deployment
training,” and were soon joined by a third. Campbell didn’t describe
precisely where the officers went other to say that at 10:41 p.m. they
discovered a burning white Ford Taurus
decommissioned police car next to a burning building. He doesn’t say
whether the building was Wortman’s cottage at 200 Portapique Beach Road
or his warehouse/man den at 136 Orchard Beach Drive.By 10:45 p.m.,
Campbell said that there were five Mounties at Portapique Beach, and
seven more en route, but not there yet.In paragraphs 17 and 18 of the
statement of defense, Campbell stated: “At about 10:49 p.m., the RCMP
members who had formed the IARD team discovered a deceased victim on
Orchard Beach Drive in Portapique. Shortly thereafter the IARD RCMP
members saw someone approaching in the darkness carrying a flashlight.
When the RCMP members prepared to engage the individual, who they
suspected might have been responsible for the fires and gunshots, the
individual turned off the light and ran into the woods. A second
deceased victim was located shortly afterward.” The first body the
Mounties said they found was that of 42-year-old Corrie Ellison. Corrie
and Clinton had been visiting their father, Richard,
who owned a property several hundred metres south of Wortman’s property
at 136 Orchard Beach Drive. Corrie had gone up the road to check out
the source of flames, which were emanating from the warehouse. He was
taking photographs of the fire when he was shot.When Clinton went to
investigate why Corrie had not come home, he found his brother’s body.
He said that as he ran back toward his father’s place, someone with a
flashlight was behind him, presumably Wortman. He ended up hiding in the
woods off Orchard Beach Drive for four hours until rescued by RCMP ERT
members just before 3 a.m.The second body found was that of elementary
school teacher Lisa McCully
who was shot dead on her front lawn across the road from where Ellison
was killed. In the basement of her house, her 12-year-old daughter and
the 12-year-old son of murder victim Greg and Jamie Blair were hiding in the basement on the phone with the RCMP. According to 911 calls obtained by Frank,
about a half hour earlier they had told the Mounties that they feared
for their two 10-year-old brothers who had left the house and were
outside somewhere.Campbell’s claim, as reported by Nicole Munro in the Halifax Chronicle Herald,
that the Mounties had found Corrie Ellison at 10:49 p.m. caught Clinton
Ellison’s attention and raised his suspicions. He has always wanted to
believe the Mounties, but their claim that they were there at 10:49 p.m.
didn’t seem right to him. He posted this on social media:
Did the RCMP kill my brother?That’s a seriously loaded question.
Ellison’s suspicion, as difficult as it might be for some to accept, has
a solid foundation and is worthy of a deeper investigation.On the
surface the RCMP version of events meshes with Ellison’s original story.
He thought he was being chased by Gabriel Wortman and ended up hiding
in the woods until he was rescued shortly after 2:30 a.m. If Campbell is
to be believed, then it was the Mounties who were stalking Ellison with
a flashlight.Really?Why would they be doing that when the flashlight
would make them targets for the very gunman they were trying to
find?Another potential problem for the RCMP story can be found in the
communications from the Pictou County Public Safety Channel archived on Broadcastify.Staff Sgt. Andy O’Brien
was captured saying this: “Clinton Ellison called us at 22:59 or the
father called us at 22:59 indicating that his other son, Corrie Ellison
was shot…. We’re trying to related back to where the other son is. We
understand that he could be in the woods hiding out somewhere.”Clinton
said in his post: “My brother wasn’t gone long enough… Minutes. Gabriel
and the RCMP would have had to have been there at the same
time.”Ellison’s timing issue is one that demands closer examination.
Clinton left his father Richard’s place and walked up the dirt and stone
road several hundred metres toward Wortman’s burning warehouse. That
would have taken him several minutes. If the RCMP found Corrie Ellison’s
body at 10:49 p.m. or 22:49, one would expect that they would linger in
place for a few minutes at least. The Mounties said they saw someone
approaching with a flashlight whom they suspected was the killer. If so,
why didn’t they confront him?Ellison managed to get to where his
brother lay dead and identify him before running away back to the south.
It would have taken him a couple of minutes to find a hiding place. He
was reluctant to make any noise but eventually called his father, told
him what was happening and asked him to call 911, which Richard Ellison
did at 22:59.What were the Mounties supposedly doing during those 10
minutes? Campbell said that the Mounties then discovered the body of
McCully.The Mounties knew that the children were in the basement and
that two 10-year olds were running around the property. They did not go
into the house or appear to have searched for the children. Instead,
they retreated. That’s not normal police procedure.Did all of this
happen as Campbell stated? It might have, but there’s a further problem –
communications records from the Pictou County Tapes,
as we've taken to calling them, the contents of which were first
reported by Frank in January.After the children in McCully’s basement
were finally rescued at around 1 a.m., some Mounties were left to
“hunker down” around the property, waiting for a ride out from the RCMP
ERT to the highway, At 1:50 a.m., another Mountie did an initial, quick
examination of a body believed to be Corrie Ellison’s.“Hotel One to risk manager.”“Go Hotel One,” said risk manager Staff Sgt. Brian Rehill who was located at the makeshift command centre at the Great Village
firehall, about a seven minute drive away.“The father of these two
(garbled) … they approached (garbled) to check out the fire…. He shot
one of them in the head. It’s a 40-calibre Smith and Wesson.”According
to the Pictou County Safety Channel recordings, RCMP ERT members
reported finding the bodies of Ellison and McCully shortly after 3 a.m. –
more than four hours after Campbell said that happened.“Oscar Charlie,
Hotel One… We’ve just stopped here on the road, ah, we’re going to do a
quick vitals on this deceased person on the side of the road just to
make sure he’s deceased and not still alive.”It was more than four and a
half hours after RCMP received the first call that something was amiss
in Portapique. The ERT officer, going by the callsign Hotel One, is
addressing Staff-Sgt. Jeff West
(Oscar Charlie), the long time head of traffic services for the RCMP in
N.S. who was in command on the scene. “Yah, confirmed, deceased,” the
Mountie said of Corrie Ellison, 34 seconds later. “What road was that
on, Jim,” a Mountie believed to be West asked. Jim didn’t know. There
are only three main roads in the survey and a couple of side roads but
the Mounties were having extreme difficulty finding their way throughout
the night. Since he couldn’t describe where the body was, the Mountie
marked it with GPS co-ordinates.“N 45.397153,” Jim said. ”W
063.703527.”The Mountie then walked across the road to where Lisa
McCully’s body was lying on the front lawn. In earlier conversations the
ERT members acknowledged that the first call to 911 came from “the
teacher’s house” which they were now standing in front of. At 3:04 a.m.,
the Mountie reported to control: “Going to do a second vital on a
second body out by the fence … over by the other body.”“Okay,” the
supervisor said. “Oscar Charlie copy.” Thirty-six seconds later, the
Mountie announced the coordinates “for the second body”. Uncomfortable questionsAround 9:30 a.m., Judy and Doug Myers
left their property on Orchard Beach Road and came across Ellison and
McCully’s bodies lying under yellow tarps. There were no Mounties to be
seen.In light of Campbell’s affidavit, uncomfortable questions abound
about what really transpired between 10:49 p.m. and 10:59 p.m. or so on
Orchard Beach Drive during the previous night. Normally, the word of the
police would never be questioned on something like this, but as we all
know this is long past a normal situation.The Mounties have been caught
lying so many times that their credibility is shredded, but like Donald Trump
they continue to charge on, gaslighting the public.The list of RCMP
lies and deceptions on the Portapique file is staggering.Original
reports said there was a party that went sour and that an aggrieved
Wortman came back to the party house and killed a bunch of people. There
were reports of bodies strewn around a house and in the yard. There was
no such party or scene.The RCMP said there was a virtual party with an
unnamed couple from Maine, who made an innocuous comment which set off Wortman and his common law wife Lisa Banfield. The RCMP’s own court documents quote an FBI agent
as saying on April 21 that he could find no evidence of such a
party.The RCMP said Lisa Banfield spent the night in the woods, barefoot
and without winter clothes, snuggled up in a tree root system. She
never got herself dirty and she didn’t lose any fingers or toes. Science
says that likely didn’t happen. Furthermore, the RCMP’s own court
documents stated that Banfield’s injuries were “minor.”In his affidavit
Campbell said the RCMP called the Department of National Defense to borrow a helicopter. Didn’t happen, the DND told Global News.Next is the curious evacuations of Alan and Joanne Griffon and their ex-con drug trafficker son, Peter,
between 11:30 p.m. and midnight from their house at the bottom of
Portapique Beach Road. They were among the handful of residents
evacuated. Most were not. Early reports said they were escorted out of
the community, which suggested that they drove their own vehicles. A new
source says that’s not the case.“They were taken out in a police
vehicle and dropped off where someone they knew could pick them up,”
said the source.Like so many people involved on all sides of this story,
the Griffons are not talking to the media.This new information about
how the Griffons got out of Portapique seems to mesh with what
previously were described as “wild rumours.” In those so-called rumours,
the Griffons were not alone in the vehicle. Another passenger was
reported to be Wortman’s common law wife Lisa Banfield, but no one will
confirm that one, either. Then there are the big ones that were revealed
by our secret source, True Blue.On
the day before Campbell swore his affidavit, Frank released 911 tapes
from three callers at Portapique each of whom described Wortman, dressed
as a Mountie and driving a RCMP cruiser while killing people. The RCMP
spent 14 months promoting the narrative that it did not know Wortman was
dressed as a Mountie and had a replica police car until they were told
by Lisa Banfield after she came out of the woods at 6:34 a.m. that
morning. True Blue also provided Frank with video tape which disputed
the version of events as earlier described by both the RCMP and by Felix Cacchione, director of the Serious Incident Response Team. The videos clearly show that Wortman was first seen by Mounties at the Petro Canada station in Elmsdale, before being shot by two ERT members at the Irving Big Stop about
five minutes later. As you might remember, two highly experienced
police officers who viewed the tapes told Frank the shooting of Wortman
looked like an execution to them. The two officers who shot at and
missed a RCMP officer and Emergency Measures Organization worker at the Onslow-Belmont
firehall acted as if they were carrying out a shoot-on-sight order.
They made no attempt to identify their target. Cacchione declared that
it was all above board.We could go on – and will, eventually – but the
point is that Clinton Ellison is right to question Supt. Campbell’s
narrative. If there was a shoot-on-sight order issued by someone in the
RCMP, when did that happen? Was it before the Irving Big Stop? Was it
before the Onslow-Belmont firehall incident? Or was it ordered soon
after the first calls came in to 911 at 10 p.m., 10:16 p.m. and 10:26
p.m. from Jamie Blair, her son, and Andrew MacDonald.These are important details that can’t be ignored.The RCMP have called in the Ontario Provincial Police
to investigate the 911 leaks on which the Mounties were caught lying
about what they knew and when they knew it. The RCMP can’t be trusted to
investigate themselves any longer. We need an independent police
investigation to get to the bottom of all this. Call in the OPP to do
that. The Surête du Quêbec. Toronto Police.
Someone honest. Please.The big proven problem, however, is that Nova
Scotia and federal politicians, bureaucrats, most journalists and the
Felix Cacchiones of the world seem transfixed by the perpetual musical
ride that the dysfunctional and treacherous RCMP is taking us on, rather
than deal with substantive issues like truth, integrity, justice and
accountability.paulpalango@protonmail.com
-
On
that terrible night in Portapique, the RCMP faced what on the surface,
at least, seemed like a no-brainer of a situation: rescue four children
hiding in a basement after their parents had been murdered by Gabriel
Wortman, or save a convicted drug trafficker with ties to a Mexican drug
cartel and his parents. Save the kids or save the con. An easy choice,
you’d think.
Yet,
the RCMP chose to evacuate convicted drug trafficker Peter Griffon and
his parents, Alan and Joanne Griffon, an hour or so before attending to
the children. The cavalry showed up at the Griffon house at 4 Faris Lane
sometime around midnight.
Meanwhile,
since 10:01 p.m. on April 18, four terrified children, two aged 12 and
two aged 10, had been on the line with a 911 operator for about two
hours, hunkered in the basement of slain school-teacher Lisa McCully’s
house at 135 Orchard Beach Drive. Some half a kilometre away from the
Griffon residence, as the crow flies.
Two
of the boys were the children of Greg and Jamie Blair. A boy and a girl
were McCully’s children. The Blair children had taken their dead
father’s cell phone from his pocket, run over to the McCully house and
woke the children there. Outside, McCully was already lying dead on the
front lawn.
The
Mounties left the children there until around 1 a.m., a total of three
hours, according to RCMP communications recordings obtained recently by
Frank magazine. The recordings, which we will call the Portapique Comms,
were archived on the Pictou County Public Safety channel, which can be
found on the U.S. website Broadcastify.
What does it mean, that the RCMP chose to save a relatively recent parolee over four frightened children?
Thirteen
people were murdered at Portapique and nine more the next day across
central Nova Scotia, the largest death toll in a shooting spree in
Canadian history.
Eleven
of the 13 murdered at Portapique lived or were killed on or near
Orchard Beach Drive, which forks off from Portapique Beach Road, just
south of Highway 2. They were: McCully, the Blairs, Frank Gulenchyn and
Dawn Madsen, Corrie Ellison, Aaron Tuck, Jolene Oliver, Emily Tuck and
Peter and Joy Bond.
Two
of the murders occurred on Portapique Beach Road. The victims were John
Zahl and Elizabeth (Jo) Thomas, who lived at 293 Portapique Beach Road
between Wortman’s cottage and across Faris Lane from the Griffon’s
corner property which faces onto Portapique Beach Road.
Over
the past nine months, the RCMP has begrudgingly released information
about what it did and has been doing in the case. It has refused to give
precise timelines. Much of what the RCMP has said about its
investigation has come from court documents known as informations to
obtain a search warrant (ITOs). Those documents have been redacted,
covered over with black ink. A media consortium has spent tens of
thousands of dollars uncovering some of what has been hidden under the
ink.
The
Portapique Comms do not provide a complete record of what the RCMP was
doing that night because some officers were using encrypted channels,
cell phones or both. However, the recordings, combined with information
already on the public record and information from new witnesses raise
major questions, perhaps none more serious than why the RCMP was so
invested in protecting the Griffons.
Who evacuated the Griffons, and why?
Alan and Joanne Griffon were friends with Wortman and his common-law wife, Lisa Banfield. They had moved in 15 years earlier.
On
April 18, Peter Griffon was living in a shack on a 20-acre plot of land
known as 287 Portapique Beach Road owned by Wortman. Peter is a
convicted drug trafficker in Alberta with ties to the Mexican drug
cartel La Familia. He was granted an early parole about two years
earlier. In his interviews with the RCMP in the days and weeks after
Wortman’s rampage, Peter said he was Wortman’s handyman and friend. He
first denied but later admitted that he was the one who installed RCMP
decals on the decommissioned police car that Wortman used in his two
rampages. His parole was revoked temporarily but he was never charged
with an offense.
In
the RCMP’s unredacted documents, Alan Griffon reported seeing Wortman’s
cottage at 200 Portapique Beach Road on fire that Saturday night. He
said he called 911 at 9:15 p.m.
Peter
Griffon saw Wortman’s warehouse at 136 Orchard Beach Drive on fire
around the same time. In the same documents, the RCMP rebut the
Griffons’ version of events stating that the call to 911 was at 10:39
p.m.
The exact time when Wortman started the fires has never been clear.
Great
Village Fire Chief Larry Kinsman said in a recent interview that he was
called by Bass River Fire Chief Alfred Grue sometime after 10 p.m. but
before 10:30 p.m. and told about a number of fires at Portapique. He
said the RCMP had already ordered the Bass River department to stand by.
Kinsman said he was told that Great Village should be ready but not
respond.
“A
few minutes after I hung up with Grue, the RCMP called and said they
wanted to use the hall as a command centre,” Kinsman said in the
interview.
Alan and Peter Griffon provided two other important time references.
On
Page 65 of the unredacted ITOs, Alan Griffon is quoted as saying:
“Around 23:15 (11:15 p.m.) he (Alan Griffon) noted that the house across
from his was not on fire and approximately 15 minutes later a set of
headlights came into his yard. Alan Griffon heard knocking and banging
on his door and the person was there for a solid five minutes. The
person did not yell out anything and was knocking on the door and
ringing the doorbell.”
Who
was knocking at the Griffons’ door? Was it Wortman? Lisa Banfield? Or
was someone else in the neighbourhood who hasn’t been identified?
Even
more curious is the statement that the Griffons wouldn’t answer the
door. We can only speculate because the Griffons are refusing to talk to
media, but why wouldn’t they come to the door? If it was because they
were frightened, what did they know?
According
to the RCMP’s narrative, Wortman supposedly had left the scene through a
path beside a blueberry field, either at 10:35 p.m. as the RCMP first
stated, or at 10:45 p.m. as it later told some family members. By 11:15
p.m. the RCMP says Wortman had just arrived on Ventura Drive in Debert
where he purportedly hid out all night behind a welding shop.
In
case you need reminding, Banfield’s story was that she escaped
handcuffs and ran away from Wortman, wearing no shoes or jacket, and hid
in the woods on a freezing cold night until 6:30 a.m., where she showed
up at the door of Leon Joudrey.
Alan
Griffon also stated in the ITOs that “around midnight they (Alan,
Joanne and Peter) were evacuated from their house by the RCMP and they
left the area.”
Who in the RCMP rescued them?
Over
the past nine months, it has been made abundantly clear and repeatedly
reported that the first responders to Portapique were held in check at
the intersection of Portapique Beach Road and Highway 2. The RCMP has
never disputed this.
It
has also been made abundantly clear and repeatedly reported that the
first Emergency Response Team members did not arrive until well after
midnight.
We
also know that four children hid in the McCully basement while on the
line with a 911 operator for what was initially described as two hours.
(The Portapique Comms confirm that the children were left in place for
three hours or more.)
The
RCMP had a choice. Some of its officers were chomping at the bit to
rescue the children but were being held back, yet the Griffons were
rescued before them? It’s precisely the opposite of what 99.9 per cent
of police officers would normally do in such a situation.
Why were the Griffons such a priority?
Orchard Beach Drive
It
appears that all regular members, the men and women in marked patrol
cars, were kept on the outside of the crime scenes south of Highway 2.
Many of them were manning road blocks west of Portapique all the way to
Bass River, a distance of about eight kilometres. Wortman escaped to the
east along Highway 2.
The
only time any of the Mounties appeared to venture into the
neighbourhood was after 1 a.m. when a foray was finally mounted to
rescue the four children at 135 Orchard Beach Drive. At that time the
bodies of the Blairs, McCully and Corrie Ellison were likely discovered
by Mounties, but apparently from a distance.
The
tight control by commanding officers on the RCMP members on the ground
could be heard in the following seemingly innocuous transmission.
Constable
Stuart Beselt was reported to be the first officer to arrive at the
scene that night at 10:26 p.m. He met neighbour Andrew MacDonald who was
trying to escape from Gabriel Wortman who had just fired two shots at
him and his wife. Around 1 a.m., Beselt went on the rescue mission of
the children, headed by Sgt. Dave Lilly.
After
the children were evacuated from Lisa McCully’s house in a Tactical
Armoured Vehicle (TAV), Beselt and a few others were left behind to
“hunker down” on the dark and freezing cold night.
At
1:50 a.m. Beselt radioed the incident commander, likely Staff-Sgt. Jeff
West: “Looking to see if we can walk out, if it’s going to be a lot
longer.”
Eventually a TAV was sent to pick the Mounties after 2 a.m.
Clinton
Ellison was hiding in the woods 150 metres or so to the south of
McCully’s property. The Mounties made no attempt to let the Mounties
already near him to go find him. They didn’t get to him for another 40
minutes, for reasons that are unclear.
The
Mounties had finally inserted themselves into the neighbourhood but
were ordered to immediately retreat. For reasons that are likewise
unclear. Armed with Colt C8 rifles – an AR-15 like semi-automatic weapon
- they were told to do nothing but defend themselves, if need be.
“That’s an unnatural thing for the police to do,” said one expert police observer who reviewed the tapes.
“They
had established a beachhead. They appear to have found multiple
victims. There were more of them than the killer. There were ERT units
there to lead the charge. But then they were told to retreat and not
investigate… Something’s missing in the story.”
All
the regular Mounties were brought back to Highway 2 and kept outside
the neighbourhood, chasing what normally would have been low priority
calls to the neighbourhoods around Five Houses Road and Bayshore Road,
more than two kilometres away.
An
ERT team finally checked the vital signs of Ellison and McCully around
3:05 a.m. It appears officers there put yellow tarps over the bodies and
then retreated, leaving them lying outside until well into the next
morning.
Some
members were sent home at 6:30 a.m., while others left at 7 a.m.,
shortly after Lisa Banfield supposedly emerged from the woods.
Throughout all this, there appears to be no attempt to do anything proactive on Orchard Beach Drive even after daylight arrived.
The
RCMP has stated in the past that much of its time was devoted to going
house to house “clearing” the area. There was no evidence of such action
on the tapes. Residents in the neighbourhood say the RCMP did nothing
of the kind.
There
clearly was little or no effort to evacuate people and take them out of
harm’s way on Orchard Beach Road, Portapique Crescent or Cobequid
Court, where there were perhaps 10 houses occupied in all. Even the next
day, finding out what happened on the road seemed quite low on the RCMP
to-do list.
Resident
Judy Myers was visited around 9:30 in the morning by ERT members who
suggested that she evacuate, which she did. She and her husband Doug,
who was the driver, drove up Orchard Beach Drive to find the bodies of
Corrie Ellison and Lisa McCully lying by the road under the yellow
tarps. Ellison’s leg was partially uncovered.
Tammy
Oliver-McCreadie, the sister of Jolene Oliver, recently was able to
gain access to her brother-in-law Aaron Tuck’s cell phone. To her
astonishment she found a text from RCMP Constable Wayne (Skipper) Bent
to Aaron. It was sent at 1:15 p.m. that Sunday. The Oliver family had
been frantically calling the RCMP throughout that day because they
couldn’t reach their family members. The RCMP repeatedly told them they
were checking. But they hadn’t been. Not in person, anyway.
The text to Aaron Tuck read: “This is Cst. Bent with the RCMP. Looking for Aaron Tuck to call me ASAP. Important. Thank you.”
The three Tucks couldn’t answer Skipper Bent’s text for obvious reasons.
Their
bodies weren’t found until near 6 p.m. that Sunday, while the Olivers
kept calling the RCMP and being stalled by Bent and the new officer in
charge Corp. Gerard Rose-Berthiaume.
“I
have really no idea why in the %#@& would they text and not walk
down the road and check them,” Oliver-McCurdie wrote in a message to
Frank.
“The phones were in the house. Aaron’s was plugged in charging.”
That
Saturday night and well into the day on Sunday, the RCMP seemed
obsessed with keeping regular members away from nine crime scenes at
Portapique Beach, even after the threat had been neutralized.
Nobody
bothered to do a wellness check on the Tucks, for one small example,
until seven hours after Gabriel Wortman’s rampage was finally brought to
an end in Enfield. Why?
And
on the previous night, why was the safety of three grown adults – an
ex-con among them – prioritized over that of four scared pre-teen
children?
The deliberate murkiness about Gabriel Wortman’s
associations with criminals in the years prior to his deadly killing
sprees has led to much speculation about what he was really doing. The RCMP
says it couldn’t find any serious organized crime connections in
Wortman’s past. The Mounties couldn’t figure out where his money came
from. The Mass Casualty Commission – the Spinquiry, as we call it – isn’t all that curious about any of it, either.
We
don’t know precisely what Wortman was doing all those years before he
killed 22 people on April 18 and 19, 2020, but several police sources
have provided Frank Magazine with a potentially helpful road map.
It begins with Hogwarts.
We’re not talking about Harry Potter’s magic school, but rather Project Hogwarts, a joint-forces police operation that began in Nova Scotiain 2016.
The
information about Project Hogwarts was provided to Frank Magazine by a
group of current and former law enforcement officers who are familiar
with aspects of what had taken place. One of them is Jimmy McNulty, the pseudonym we use for a source we’ve been talking to for this story since almost the beginning.
“In
2015, the Atlantic provinces started seeing a new stage in the
proliferation of outlaw motorcycle gangs,” said Jimmy McNulty. “The
Hells Angels were moving east, setting up in Charlottetown and Nova Scotia. The Red Devils, the Angels’ number one support club, set up shop in Musquodoboit Harbour. Another support club, the Gatekeepers MC(I remember those guys!-ed.) started opening up clubhouses around the province. They were supported by the Sedition MC and the Darksiders MC.”
It
had been about 14 years since the Hells Angels had been driven out of
Nova Scotia after a series of devastating police actions, and now the
gang was coming back to town, not only in the Maritimes but also across
the country. It was part of a strategy to control the illegal drug trade
from coast to coast.
The RCMP was on the case. In fact, then Commissioner Robert Paulson
had made taking down the Hells Angels his number one crime-fighting
priority in Canada. RCMP projects were being initiated everywhere to
counter the threat.
“People were
noticing that the bikers were setting up shop and began to complain
about it all,” McNulty said. “By the spring of 2016, police forces in
Nova Scotia, led by the RCMP, tried to tackle the issue. A provincial
biker enforcement unit called the CFSEU (Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit) was set up as part of RCMP federal operations. It was called Project Hogwarts.
“Our
intention was to show the outlaw motorcycle gangs that we always
control the grounds in our area,” McNulty said. “Our media mouth pieces
used fear tactics to rouse the public about the dangers and we began our
policing.”
Stories to that end, like one by Keith Doucette of The Canadian Press in late 2016, began sounding the alarm.
“It doesn’t sit well with me for them to be here because I know what they bring with them,” Doucette wrote, quoting RCMP Corporal Andy Cook. “I’ve seen them in action, and they bring violence with them and they bring drug trafficking with them.”
Stephen Schneider, a criminology professor at St. Mary’s University,
told Doucette that the Hells Angels were looking to not only control
the Canadian market but were likely also planning to set up an export
market.
“They are certainly
operating pill presses out in B.C. and perhaps they want to start
setting up production facilities in the Maritimes so they actually can
start exporting,” Schneider was quoted as saying.
Throughout
2016 and 2017, the pages of Frank were littered with biker stories, not
only big-picture stuff like who was pulling the strings in Nova Scotia —
full-patch London, Ont. HA David (Hammer) MacDonald was one of the top guys — but identifying the comings and goings of many of the smaller players on the ground here, from Annapolis County to Sydney.
Project Hogwarts was lead by RCMP InspectorAlfredo Bangloy. The “brains” of the operation was RCMP Sgt. Angela Hawryluk. Other members of the original team included then-Cpl. (now Sgt.) Mike Kerr, RCMP constables Chris Dodge, Scott Morrison, Peter Hurley and Colby Smith. Halifax Police officers on the team included Detective constables Steve Fairbairn, Nathan Cross, Curtis Osmond, Mike Carter, Cory Simmonds and Rebecca Trueman. A civilian working with the unit was Ellen Urquhart.
As the team conducted its surveillance, they became aware of then 47-year-old Robin Moulton, a high-profile Hells Angels Nomad from New Brunswick,
making his presence known in Nova Scotia. The Nomads are elite Hells
Angels members who have no set club house and are said to have earned
their ranking by having killed for the club, although Moulton does not
appear to have ever been charged with murder. Moulton’s lawyer, T.J. Burke did not respond to a request for comment on this or previous stories.
“We
focused a lot on Moulton and even put a tracker on his vehicle,”
McNulty said. “We followed him back to New Brunswick and were able to
identify various real estate and businesses to which he was associated.
“The
investigation was proceeding smoothly until the RCMP brass in New
Brunswick caught wind that we had expanded into New Brunswick and were
chasing bikers on their turf. They were pissed,” McNulty said. “They
wanted to shut us down.”
Before that happened, a parallel operation to Hogwarts was set up in New Brunswick – Operation Trident.
The Nova Scotia CFSEU investigation is archived in the RCMP’s PROS record system under file number 2016-979629, McNulty said. The New Brunswick one is filed in the PROS system as 2016-1141937. Frank Magazine will be filing a request to see those files in due course.
In 2016, the outlaw-biker obsessed Commissioner Paulson put assistant commissioner Larry Tremblay
in charge of the New Brunswick RCMP. A former member of the Canadian
Navy, Tremblay joined the RCMP and rose through the ranks. Between 2004
and 2008 he was seconded to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
In Ottawa, Tremblay ran national security, financial crimes and serious
organized crime investigations until 2014. He then moved into
protective services, hobnobbing with the political elite, overseeing
security for the Prime Minister, Governor General and Parliament, a tried-and-true steppingstone to the upper echelons of the RCMP.
Tremblay
had no sooner hit the ground in New Brunswick when he began to put in
place his own hand-picked team to take on the Hells Angels. Many of them
were trusted French speakers, like then Staff-Sgt. Dustine Rodier, who took command of the Hampton, N.B.
detachment, which was at the centre of the action. people he believed
he could trust. McNulty said that many of the investigators from
Hogwarts and Trident were rolled into two new operations: Projects J-Thunderstruckand J-Thunder.
Project J-Thunderstruck targeted Hells Angels Nomad Emery “Pit” Martin who was operating in Northern New Brunswick, along the border with Quebec.
Project
Thunder’s focus was on his fellow Nomad Robin Moulton and the Red
Devils, in particular, in Southern New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
It
could be reasonably argued that creating large interprovincial
operations made sense, considering that the entire population of the
Maritimes is less than that of the city of Toronto.
The new investigators added to the investigation roster included Inspector Deanna Hill, Inspector Ron DeSilva, Staff Sergeants Bruce Reid, Sgt. Eric Lanteigne and Constable Julie Messina. Other key players included Fredericton Sgt. Mike Berry and Corporal Gerard Crispo. There were additional investigators from RCMP federal services, Fredericton Police, the Canadian Border Security Agency and other policing jurisdictions.
Here’s where the investigations started to get tricky.
“Any RCMP investigation of outlaw bikers requires an informant, someone the Mounties can control,” McNulty said.
In early 2017, he said, the team was told that the RCMP indeed had a new informant for Project Thunder.
“We were told that they had someone in the Truro-Portapique area who was tied into MS-13 and the Angels,” McNulty said. “The Mounties were hot on it.”
For those familiar with this ongoing saga, the El Salvadoran street gang Mara Salvatrucha
or MS-13 – “the most notorious street gang in the Western Hemisphere” –
is linked to precisely one person in that area – Wortman’s friend and
handyman Peter Alan Griffon.
The
RCMP and the Spinquiry have all but made the 42-year-old Griffon
invisible in spite of his obvious credentials as a witness that many in
the public would like to see testify. Griffon was reportedly working on
Wortman’s property in the hours leading up to the beginning of the
massacres. He called Lisa Banfield’s
phone on a number of occasions. Griffon also told police that he was
the person who applied the RCMP decals to a decommissioned police car,
creating the near perfect replica of an RCMP cruiser that Wortman used
during his 13.5-hour spree. Griffon was never charged and his current
whereabouts are unknown.
Parole
Board of Canada documents describe the circumstances of his 2014 arrest
as part of an investigation into MS-13 elements in Edmonton.
“In December 2014 police were conducting an investigation into a known Security Threat Group(STG).
You came to their attention through this investigation and on the same
day, police stopped a vehicle you were driving. The vehicle was searched
and police found cash, a baggie with 3 grams of cocaine, a black
backpack containing approximately 800 grams of cocaine, more cash, a
score sheet, a portable hard drive and a camera. Police also located
multiple cell phones in the vehicle.
“A
short time later, police searched a warehouse where you were living. A
number of items were found, including multiple firearms and ammunition,
approximately 4 kilos of cocaine, $30,000 in cash and various
paraphernalia used to buff, package, and traffic cocaine. You did not
have a licence to possess any of the weapons and admitted to the police
that you worked for a cocaine distribution operation and his job was to
store, process, distribute, and transport cocaine to traffickers.”
Griffon languished in an Alberta
jail for several years, partly because of a day parole violation, and
eventually received a relatively short sentence of two years, eight
months and nine days.
The
obvious problem with Griffon being the sole RCMP informant was that in
2017 he was still imprisoned in Alberta and didn’t win his parole until
August 2018. Once he was paroled, Griffon was allowed to move back to
live in his parents’ house, which was located several hundred meters
south of Wortman’s cottage at 200 Portapique Beach Road.
“We
didn’t get a name on the informant, but I firmly believe it was Wortman
and that he was the one who supplied the hydraulic pill presses to the
Hells Angels. He fit the profile perfectly,” McNulty said.
The
danger for the police, McNulty added, was that Wortman was also a
criminal who might have been playing both sides at the same time.
Wherever
the truth lies, McNulty said that there was likely a natural evolution
of the relationship between Wortman and the RCMP. Wortman had family
members who were Mounties and he associated with police officers on a
regular basis. It likely all began with a simple relationship,
exchanging information with police officers such as Halifax constable Barry Warnell and RCMP constable Greg Wiley, who visited Wortman 16 times until early 2017.
“The
thing to note is that Wiley told the MCC that he had no notes about
their conversations, which I find hard to believe. That’s not the way
the Mounties roll. They report everything,” McNulty said. “What Wiley
did say was that he would check in with Wortman about minor criminal
activity in the community. That tells you something right there.”
McNulty
and their group believe that as Project Thunder got off the ground, the
RCMP relationship with Wortman moved to the next level – agent.
“That’s
where the big money is,” McNulty said. “He would have had a
professional handler at that point. I believe that Mountie was Constable
Peter Hurley.
That was his specialty. He was the kind of handler who promised the
moon to potential informants and even more so to agents, but the RCMP is
notorious for not following through.”
Once New Brunswick took over, Inspector DeSilva, then head of the Federal Serious and Organized Crime Unit, assumed the handler responsibility, McNulty said.
We
may never know the true story. It would be a criminal offense for a
Mountie to reveal the identity of an informant or agent, even after they
are dead. The RCMP undercover manual instructs members to lie to
everyone but a judge about such matters.
What we do know is what we are allowed to know.
When
Moulton was arrested in August 2017, he was charged with possession of
cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and possession of a restricted
firearm – a 9 mm Beretta. Not much considering all the effort when you
think about it.
At the time of his arrest, CBC News asked then Fredericton Police Chief Leanne Fitchabout
the investigation. She said: “Getting down into the weeds of any
particular aspect of ongoing or past or present issues could jeopardize
investigations and officer and public safety, so I won’t be commenting
on any specifics.”
In 2018, Moulton received a rather short sentence of four years and six months.
There was a good reason why that happened, McNulty said.
“The
agent was still in place and the RCMP couldn’t reveal everything they
knew because that would point to the agent, so they left important
things out so they could continue their investigation,” McNulty said.
“It could be argued that there was a miscarriage of justice. Moulton’s
lawyer wasn’t given all the facts about what the police had been doing.”
The
twin projects concluded on April 9, 2020 with the announcement by
Inspector DeSilva that two more Hells Angels member and two Red Devils
had been arrested in New Brunswick over the previous seven weeks.
DeSilva went out of his way to link the arrests to the previous ones of
Moulton and Martin, three and two years earlier, respectively. In
October, 2021 Martin received a seven-and-a-half year prison term for
cocaine trafficking and acting in the benefit of a criminal
organization.
“One of the most
dangerous times is the end of an operation,” another police source said,
echoing the thoughts of others. “By that time, the bad guys, especially
the bikers, usually have a good idea about who the rat was.”
Nine days after the projects closed, Wortman began his rampage.
From
the closed and dangerous world of outlaw bikers, I continue to hear
stories about how Wortman was identified as a snitch and had his life
threatened over what happened to Moulton, Martin and the others. No one
yet will go on the record, which comes as no surprise, considering the,
um, grave consequences.
As for the Mounties, they have their own Hogwarts thing – a magical ability to make controversies disappear into the wind.
In
the spring of 2020, around the time of the massacres or shortly
afterward, multiple sources say that Hurley was transferred to Ferryland, a small RCMP detachment on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, about an hour’s drive south of St. John’s. In recent months, he has taken down his social media.
Others,
such as Staff-Sgt. Reid were not so lucky. Shortly before 2 p.m. on
October 25, 2019, he committed suicide at a baseball diamond in Rothesay, N.B.
Reid suffered from typical psychological maladies affecting many police
officers, but those who knew him closely say he was particularly
distraught over his unheeded warnings about significant failings in the
overall Hells Angels’ investigations. According to sources in New
Brunswick, Reid believed a number of people – as many as four – had been
murdered during the course of the investigation largely due to the
RCMP’s shortcomings. Reid told people that he was worried sick about one
of the agents that the force had employed. He strongly believed that
the person was dangerous and unsuited to the task, but that no one would
listen to him.
Fifteen months after the massacres, New Brunswick Attorney General Hugh Flemming
took the unprecedented step of having Asst. Commissioner Tremblay
removed from his posting. Flemming stated in a letter to RCMP
Commissioner Brenda Lucki that he had “lost faith” in Tremblay, but gave
no specifics about the roots of his dissatisfaction.
Nova Scotia’s underperforming boss, Assistant Commissioner Leona (Lee) Bergerman, was allowed to resign, as were a significant number of her underlings who were involved in the RCMP response to the massacres.
Before
she retired Sgt. Hawryluk was the Mountie in charge of writing the
informations to obtain search warrants in the post-massacres
investigation. She became a vocal critic of Frank Magazine and me, to
the point of lambasting a small store owner near where she lived over
his selling my recent book, 22 Murders.
The
other trick that the RCMP employs when faced with embarrassment is to
promote those who might have failed and safely bury their possible
transgressions in the upper echelons of the force. For example, Chief Superintendent Chris Leather was moved to a federal policing leadership role in Ottawa.
Staff-Sgt
Rodier was promoted to Inspector and was running the Communicatons wing
and 911 operations for the RCMP on the weekend of the massacres. After
that debacle she received another promotion to Superintendent.
Superintendent Darren Campbell was given a bump to Chief Superintendent and placed in charge of operations in New Brunswick.
His
new boss was now Assistant Commissioner Deanna Hill. She was a key
player in Projects Thunder and Thunderstruck and afterward was placed in
charge of the RCMP in Newfoundland.
“Tremblay
put his people in place all over the Maritimes so that he could control
things” McNulty said. “After he was pushed out, they brought back
Deanna Hill to replace him. It’s just a continuation of what had been
going on. You can’t help but think that they’ve put people in place to
protect the untold story that scares the shit out of all of them.”
Next
there is DeSilva. We don’t know yet what he really did – and the RCMP
would never confirm or deny if he was Wortman’s handler -- but the
Mounties obviously thought he did a terrific job. DeSilva was named Officer of the Year in 2017 and eventually was promoted to Superintendent. He is currently the officer in charge of the CodiacDetachment, essentially the municipal police for Moncton and its sister communities of Dieppe and Riverview. That’s where at least three of the four murders may have taken place.
One
might think that the Mass Casualty Commission might be interested in
poking around in all this, but one of its three Commissioners is Leanne Fitch
who, to echo her CBC quote, is not the kind of person who likes
“getting down into the weeds” of police investigations. The entire
Commission appears to be laser focused on not getting to the bottom of
the story, having avoided any potentially embarrassing exploration like
that for about six months.
Its
circular logic goes something like this: “We can’t explore anything that
we haven’t been able to document, and we are not going to search for
documents that we haven’t been told about because our mandate is not to
find fault or cause trauma.”
Our mandate is quite the opposite.
If you can lend us a hand, please step forward and tell us what you know. The greater community would appreciate it very much.
Most
Nova Scotians today know the basics of what transpired April 18th and
19th, 2020 when something snapped in the mind of Dartmouth denturist
Gabriel Wortman, who, dressed as an RCMP officer and driving a replica
RCMP vehicle, launched a two day murderous rampage that left 22 Nova
Scotians and one unborn child dead and the gunman himself killed by the
RCMP.
It was the worst mass
killing in Canadian history and it happened here at home. You might
think getting the full story behind what happened would be a priority
for the mainstream media. Sadly that has not been the case.
Even
as the Mass Casualty Commission promises to get to the truth of what
happened that tragic weekend, many Nova Scotians remain skeptical. There
are some who believe the Commission is party to a cover-up and there
never was any intention to reveal the whole truth about the actions of
Gabriel Wortman and Canada’s national police force, the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police.
Critics believe
this has become an effort to deflect from the relationship between
them. Why isn’t Wortman’s criminal record and his association with a
criminal motorcycle gang not part of the MCC inquiry? The critics
believe there is an effort to cover-up the RCMP’s involvement or
relationship with Wortman and his relationship with the Hells Angels.
Was Gabriel Wortman a confidential police informant? Yet there is little
effort by the mainstream media to get to the real story, beyond the
pablum fed to them by the RCMP and the MCC.
I’ll
give the Chronicle Herald a thumbs up for facts unearthed by its
reporters in the thousands of documents dumped online by the Commission,
seemingly an effort to bury pertinent details. The CBC’s Elizabeth
McMillan has, through freedom of information requests, also revealed
new details. However, it stops there.
The
mainstream Nova Scotia media need to wake up to the very real
possibilities this is much more than just one man’s two day killing
spree. Serious questions need to be asked and revealed about events
leading up to that weekend, the April weekend itself and the days and
weeks following the murders. Where is CTV’s Rick Grant when you need
him?
Sadly, those days of
investigative reporters breaking news stories are long gone. Halifax’s
all-news talk station has no reporters. When was the last time CTV, CBC
or Global broke a major story? CTV for example, has done a reasonable
job reporting details from the testimony before the Mass Inquiry
Commission, but in the days following the mass killings, the mainstream
media continued to accept the narrative presented by the RCMP even as
details were few, including no accurate account of the number of people
killed. Radio, television and newspaper reports often included
verbatim RCMP news releases. It was left to the alternative media to
carry the ball.
Thanks to online
sites like Little Grey Cells and quasi-news organizations like the
Halifax Examiner, and especially Frank Magazine, we began getting
details not provided by the RCMP. We were beginning to realize the
Mounties were holding key facts from the public.
Frank’s
release of the 911 calls from Wortman’s victims and video from his
take-down at the Big Stop in Enfield were major scoops. And Frank’s
Paul Palango has been ruthless is revealing more details about Wortman,
his criminal record and his association with motorcycle gangs and
police. He has been a thorn in the side of the RCMP to the point where
the RCMP’s media co-ordinator referred to Palango as “an asshole.” He
alone has kept this story fresh in the minds of those who follow
alternative media.
Then there’s
the Lisa Banfield story. Wortman’s long-time companion was indeed a
victim of abuse, but the MCC’s decision not to allow cross examination
by lawyers for his victims because she was a victim was more evidence
for those screaming cover-up. Any effort to question her about her story
the night the massacres began was denied.
Why?
She is a key witness who could provide more details about what might
have set Wortman off and her story about escaping handcuffs while
locked in the gunman’s RCMP replica police cruiser and spending the
night huddled inside a log in the woods is sketchy at best. And again it
is only Frank and Paul Palango who are asking questions about her
claims. The Examiner’s Tim Bousquet bought into the MCC’s version of
events and recently told a critic to “fuck off.”
Palango
told me quite emphatically this is a story about the failure of police,
but he thinks the mainstream media has lost interest. Palango says he
has no doubt a cover-up is underway. He got support for his claims from
an unlikely source, retired CTV anchor Steve Murphy. In two commentaries
Murphy agreed there is more to this story than we are being told and
suggested the so called conspiracy theorists were on the right track.
Murphy also said Lisa Banfield should have been cross-examined by family
lawyers. Outside of his comments, it has been crickets from the
mainstream media.
”There is no longer a sense of pursuit,” Palango told me.
“It’s like the instinct had been bred out of reporters. No one is doing anything.”
So
many questions need answers. Why did the Mounties call for help from
the RCMP in New Brunswick? Why not seek aid from nearby police in Truro
or Amherst? Why were highway blockades not set up? Why was a man with
known ties to the Hells Angels and a neighbour and a friend of
Wortman’s evacuated with his father and mother from their home in
Portapique while four children whose parents had just been murdered
huddled in one home for hours? Why was Constable Heidi Stephenson,
basically a traffic cop, looking for a killer alone in her police car?
Was the gunman a police confidential informant? What was Gabriel
Wortman’s connection to the Hells Angels?
The
truth is out there. But is the Nova Scotia media up to the task of
unravelling the full story behind this terrible tragedy? Stay tuned.
There’s clearly a lot more to learn.
At
a time when one might think that the Mass Casualty Commission has all
but buried the notion that Gabriel Wortman was either an RCMP informant
or, even worse, a paid agent, there are significant holes in the
official story that suggest otherwise, according to informed sources.
One
source, close to the operations of Brink’s Security, says they were
aware of details of the March 30, 2020 transaction in which Wortman
made an unusual and even unprecedented withdrawal of $475,000 in $100
bills from the Brink’s Security Depot at 19 Ilsley Avenue in the
Burnside Industrial Park in Dartmouth. Security camera video shows
Wortman entering the Brink’s lot, going into a “man room” in the
building, signing a slip and leaving with a pouch containing the money.
“The authorization to release the money was signed by the New Brunswick RCMP,” insists the source.
The
money that Wortman received came from the CIBC bank, but was routed
through CIBC Intria, a subsidiary company that typically provides cash
for ATM machines. That Wortman was able to have money delivered by CIBC
Intria to Brinks for pickup was highly irregular and contravened all
banking regulations, says a banking insider aware of the CIBC’s set up
and protocols.
“The first rule of banking is that you count out the money in front of the customer,” the banking source said.
“It’s
all done in person and is filmed. You can’t let $475,000 walk out the
door just like that. That’s everyone’s year end bonus. The money is
counted and signed for. If this was Wortman’s personal money, the bank
would never send it through Intria and then have the customer pick it up
in a pouch without counting it. There’s too much room for error. That
just wouldn’t happen. What this all tells me is that they bent the rules
for him because it likely wasn’t his personal money. There was
something else going on there.”
Both
sources are reluctant to go on the record at this time for what should
be obvious reasons, but one might reasonably conclude that the three
Commissioners running what we’ve taken to calling the Spinquiry would be
eager to dig deep into these allegations.
Such is not the case.
Let’s examine what the Commission did and didn’t do.
The
$475,000 cash withdrawal by Wortman has put the RCMP and its enablers
on the defensive since it was first reported in June 2020 in MacLean’s
magazine by me, Stephen Maher and Shannon Gormley.
In
that and a follow-up story, we reported that informed police sources
told us that the money pick up had all the hallmarks of an undercover
operation. Subsequently, as reported in my recent book and in these
pages, we have reported additional sourcing for similar transactions
involving the RCMP in New Brunswick and in Western Canada.
In
a June 4, 2020 public update RCMP Superintendent Darren Campbell made a
statement that the RCMP could find “no evidence” of a special
relationship between Wortman and the force.
More
recently, Campbell provided a more forceful written statement to the
MCC that was co-signed by Superintendent David Astephen, a former
Halifax Mountie who is now director of RCMP National Covert Operations.
“There
was never any special relationship of any kind between Gabriel Wortman
and the RCMP. This includes the fact that Wortman was never a
confidential informant nor a civilian police agent for the RCMP.
Furthermore, a review of our departmental security records indicates
that Wortman was never employed by, nor a volunteer with, the RCMP.
“The
standard law-enforcement practise is not to release information about
whether someone was, or was not, a confidential informant. This
‘neither confirm, nor deny’ policy is in keeping with the Supreme Court
of Canada’s description of informer privilege as being of ‘fundamental
importance’ and ‘an ancient and hallowed protection which plays a
vital role in law enforcement’… If law enforcement regularly confirmed
that certain individuals were not confidential informants while
refusing to do the same for others, we would in effect undermine our
legal obligation to protect informer privilege where it does exist. Such
a practise would not only put confidential informants at risk of
serious harm, but also discourage the important role that citizens who
provide information to law enforcement play in the overall protection
of public safety.”
As strong as
the denial appears to be, it should come with a “buyer beware” warning.
Campbell is now helping run New Brunswick’s “J” Division, where there
is a seemingly impenetrable lid on what has been going on there over the
past few years.
Even more
interesting is the fact that one of Astephen’s predecessors as director
of National Covert Operations was Superintendent John Robin.
Remember
him? The husband of then Halifax County RCMP boss Janis Gray, Robin
inserted himself into the Nova Scotia Investigation in April 2021. His
sidekick in that ruse was former Mountie Mike Butcher, the husband of
then Assistant Commissioner Leona (Lee) Bergerman.
Robin
pretended to be assigned to the Mass Casualty Commission. He even had a
business card proclaiming his make-believe office. That’s what covert
operations does. It’s sneaky. Deceptive. And has a lot of tricks up its
sleeve.
In spite of Campbell and
Astephen’s declaration to the contrary, there is the very real
possibility that the RCMP has merely doubled down on the big lie about
Wortman. That would be the smart move for a desperate organization.
After all, who would dare challenge them? Governments? The ocularly
challenged mainstream and alternative media?
Under
Part 31.1, section 3.3 of the RCMP’s covert operational manual this is
stated: “The identity of a source must be protected at all times except
when the administration of justice requires otherwise, i.e. a member
cannot mislead a court in any proceeding in order to protect a source.”
Protecting the identity of covert sources — even after their death — is standard policing procedure.
The
police can lie to anyone but a judge in a courtroom setting. The
Inquiry is not a court. J. Michael MacDonald, the chief commissioner, is
a former judge, not a sitting judge. The stakes for the RCMP and
governments are enormous, if Wortman were found to have been working for
the RCMP. There is good reason for the powers that be to mislead the
public. That being the case, one would expect that they would show their
every card to prove their position, but that is not what they have
done.
Opinions masquerading as facts are dished out. There are gaping omissions. What should be there, just isn’t there.
In
July, the Mass Casualty Commission dumped hundreds of pages of
Wortman’s financial records and emails between him and the CIBC. It all
looked to be thorough, indisputable and daunting. In those documents,
Wortman was shown to be liquidating guaranteed investment certificates
(GICs) because of his fear of a banking collapse due to the Covid-19
pandemic. In the emails Wortman pleaded to have the monies sent to
Brink’s. It was an unprecedented event and, as we pointed out in this
magazine recently, hasn’t been repeated since.
“It
was the first time, and I’ve worked there for three years, that we ever
had an arrangement like that,” Brinks employee Tiyana Gillis said in a
statement to the MCC.
“Yeah, it was, it was odd.”
It’s
important to note that Wortman purchased the GICs in 2016 and 2017. The
Commission and the RCMP, however, could not determine the origin of the
funds that Wortman had used. Wortman’s own financial records showed a
rather paltry income for his businesses, his personal accounts and those
of Lisa Banfield, who made around $15,000 one year but drove a flashy
Mercedes Benz.
In combing
through Wortman’s records, forensic accountants working for the RCMP
said they could not find the sources of Wortman’s money. That’s
extremely curious for two reasons.
One:
A quality banking source points out that notes on such matters are made
and stored forever. And in many cases regular retail customers can
access those notes.
Two: In Lisa
Banfield, who fielded almost every phone call for Wortman and who
shared a bank account with him, the RCMP and the MCC had a potential
co-operating witness.
Did they ask her where the money came from?
There
appears to be nothing in the public record about her describing the
couple’s cash flow and its origins and no way to account for the
$705,000 in cash that the RCMP found hidden outside Wortman’s burned-out
cottage.
Nevertheless, MCC investigator Dwayne King offered this opinion in his report to the MCC:
“As
a result of the writers reviewing all of the evidence currently
available to the Commission, it is the opinion of the writer that:
l The $705,000 in cash in not the direct proceeds of street level drug trafficking;
l The $475,000 in cash picked up by the perpetrator from Brinks is not payment relating to a confidential informant;
l
There is not sufficient information available to form an opinion on the
original source of funds from the $475,000 in cash withdrawn by the
perpetrator. There is also insufficient information available to form an
opinion on the source of the $230,000 in currency that made up a
portion of the $705,000 in currency that was seized.”
It
should be noted that Toronto Police Department sources describe King as
being part of then former Police Chief Bill Blair’s inner circle on
the force before he moved on to politics. Blair was the federal Public
Safety minister at the time of the massacres and was instrumental in
setting up the Mass Casualty Commission and its wonky mandate.
Next comes the comment from the Brink’s-linked source about the New Brunswick RCMP authorizing the release of the monies.
One
of the source documents we could not find in Wortman’s financial
records released by the Mass Casualty Commission was the release he was
filmed signing before being handed the $475,000.
In
statements released by the MCC, Brink’s manager Marcel Briand does not
address the issue of who authorized the transaction. He was not called
as a live witness.
The link to the RCMP in New Brunswick is an important one and entirely unexplored by the MCC.
Police
sources both within and outside the RCMP point to two long-term
relationships with police officers that they found suspicious.
One
was with Halifax Constable Barry Warnell, the longest serving police
officer on the force. Until around 2007, Warnell was considered to be an
undercover specialist who dabbled in real estate on the side. In a
statement to the MCC, he said his relationship with Wortman was based on
their mutual business interests. The MCC did not dig into the details.
RCMP
Constable Greg Wiley also stated that he visited Wortman 16 times at
his Portapique cottage between the years 2008 and 2017. Wiley had no
notes of the visits and did not appear to file reports on the visits,
which police sources say was odd. Wiley did, however, vaguely state that
Wortman was passing on information about criminal activities in the
area.
“I knew the value of
having a few people in the community that you go to, and ironically,
this is the irony of it, I was going to a guy, him of all guys and
asking, um, ‘Is there anything that we sh-should know about or anyone —
anyone that should be on our radar?’ And isn’t it ironic how things have
turned out?” said Wiley.
To a policeman’s ear that sounds like Wortman was a budding informant.
“It’s very suspicious,” said a former senior Mountie.
“There are repeated visits and no records of what happened. That’s not the way it should go if everything is on the up-and-up.”
In 2017, Wiley stopped seeing Wortman. The date is interesting.
That
year, New Brunswick RCMP boss, Assistant Commissioner Larry Tremblay,
moved to take over all anti-outlaw biker operations in the Maritimes.
The
question then becomes: Was it merely a co-incidence that Const. Wiley
stopped dropping in on Wortman in 2017 or was there something deeper
going on?
If Wortman was indeed
an agent, he would have been working for not only the New Brunswick RCMP
but possibly other law enforcement agencies, including Halifax police
and the Canadian Border Security Agency, multiple sources speculate.
If
his cover was blown, as some police sources believe it was, then
Wortman was a man either on the run or headed into witness protection.
The
opinion by Dwayne King dismissing Wortman’s involvement in criminal
activities dovetails perfectly with the position taken by the MCC. It
has shown no interest in the past almost six months of hearings delving
into Wortman’s criminal past or possible connections to the RCMP or
other police forces.
Finally, there is the source who is familiar with both CIBC and CIBC Intria operations.
In
its document dump, the MCC did not release any supporting documents
from Intria showing either the authorization for the release of the
monies and other directions that it might have received.
“I
don’t care what the Commission is saying,” said the CIBC-Intria source,
“The story doesn’t work for me. Banks are fastidious about the rules.
This transaction flew under the radar of FinTrac (Financial
Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada). Why would the bank
do this for Gabriel Wortman and no one else? It doesn’t make sense. If
Wortman could do it and get around FinTrac, every criminal would be
doing this.”
A tricky story like
this one is the inevitable result of the approach taken by the MCC in
its proscribed, blinkered, cautious and politically correct mandate.
It
conducts its proceedings in a “trauma-informed” fashion which means it
doesn’t want to upset anyone – except for those, including Mounties, who
refuse to toe the line and stick to the preferred narrative.
They can
be savaged.
It’s not trying to
find fault or assign blame, and then skips over inconvenient details and
refuses to pin the tail on the donkey.
It
bombs us with thousands of pages of predigested “interviews” and
“statements” but lawyers are restricted from conducting proper cross
examinations.
What we’re left
with is the RCMP’s proven ineptitude, deceptions and lies, all wrapped
in a stifling blanket of secrecy, which naturally fuels suspicion and
skepticism.
The
Mass Casualty Commission’s go-to response is that there is only one
truth —their truth — and a fact is not a fact in its view unless it
comes from the three Commissioners, the federal government and its bevy
of lawyers, the RCMP or approved and vetted witnesses.
It has weaponized the concept of conspiracy theorism.
The
Commissioner agreed with Lisa Banfield’s pricy lawyer, James Lockyer,
that her being cross examined by anyone but Commission legal counsel
would lead to a feeding frenzy of conspiracy theories. Imagine that.
Banfield spent 19 years with an eventually murderous criminal but she’s
too fragile to be challenged about what she did and didn’t know about
him and his activities. That’s a novel definition of transparency, if
ever there was one.
Those very
same lawyers for the families were told that they can’t roam outside
the established boundaries of the Mass Casualty Commission’s
“foundational documents” because that, too, would invite conspiracy
theories. No questions about touchy things like Wortman’s criminal
history or questionable reports by the Serious Incident Response Team,
the police lap, er, watchdog.
In
spite of all their efforts and vigilance to control the narrative, a
lingering and pervasive odor continues to rise from the Mass Casualty
Commission.
There is a legal term whose meaning could be adapted to describe what has been going on.
Campbell and Leather Mexican standoff by Paul Palango
August 3, 2022
Frank Magazine August 3, 2022
On Campbell and Leather, and the Mexican standoff brewing in the background at the MCC
By Paul Palango
RCMP
Superintendent Darren Campbell apologized to the surviving families of
the victims and spilled a tear or two in the process in his recent
testimony before the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry.
He
was followed for two days by Chief Superintendent Chris Leather, who
conceded that he “missed the mark” on that terrible weekend of April 18
and 19, 2020 when demented denturist Gabriel Wortman killed 22 Nova
Scotians in two rampages over a 13.5-hour-long period.
Wow! Contrition, finally, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The
important question: was it sincere, or was it all just part of the
master RCMP playbook when it comes to dealing with uncomfortable
controversies like this one?
Deny. Deflect. Lie. And, if none of that works, Cry.
What
we’ve taken to calling the Spinquiry meandered for more than five
months and 74 or so sessions to get to Campbell and Leather. By the time
they did, it should be noted, it was the last week of July. Most people
were likely kicking back and relaxing, tuned out to the impossible
narrative presented by the “trauma-informed” commission.
Let’s
look at what was likely going on by adding some valuable and needed
context and history, notions to which our friends in the mainstream and
alternative media seem to be acutely allergic when they report the news.
To
fully appreciate what was going on, we must begin with the barrage of
information that spewed out of the MCC pipeline in the days before
Campbell and Leather were called upon.
Much
of the previous two weeks was consumed with panel hearings and
testimony about “gender-based and intimate-partner violence.” This was
all orchestrated as a buildup to the unchallenged “testimony” of
Wortman’s common-law wife, Lisa Banfield. As you may recall, lawyers for
the family were not allowed to cross-examine her out of fear that
digging for truth would only lead to more “conspiracy theories.” Yep,
you heard that right.
Two things
happened on Friday July 23, effectively the working day before Campbell
was called the following Monday to give his evidence.
First,
there was the damning testimony of two professors, Kristy Martire from
the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and Tess Neal
from the University of Arizona. They concluded that the RCMP’s much
touted “psychological autopsy” was nothing but bunk, mere
public-relations window dressing that was devoured whole by the
mainstream media back in the late spring of 2020 when it was first
announced.
Lawyer and MCC critic
Adam Rodgers questioned why Martire and Neal were hired for the job
over local talent “perhaps done so for a fraction of the cost.”
Rogers
also made some other interesting observations: “These experts were not
contracted to provide the MCC with their own, or an alternate, forensic
psychological assessment of the killer. There does not appear to be any
plan to have one performed either. At least the MCC has not stated that
one is forthcoming. So, we do not have access to the RCMP report, and
will not receive an independent report analyzing the psyche of the
killer. This seems like a shortcoming for an inquiry that, among other
things, is trying to figure out why a person committed a mass shooting.
“Martire
and Neal were highly critical of the RCMP assessment. They did not even
know what to call it, noting that it also had elements of a
retrospective behavioural profile and a retrospective risk assessment,
both of which (in their view) are different than a psychological
autopsy. The author of the report, Dr. Matt Logan, was noted not even to
be a certified psychologist in Canada, despite referring to himself as a
“criminal psychologist, a term which the experts testified does not
exist in the field,” Rogers said.
The
second thing that the MCC slipped by most of the public was a statement
from a Mountie who had been hidden from public sight for more than two
years. He is Superintendent Archie Thompson. He was the senior officer
in command of Northeast Nova, where most of the murders occurred.
Thompson said he chose to stay home that night and not actively become part of the RCMP response at a command post.
“I
wouldn’t want to do that and inject myself into the investigation… The
rank, the colour of the uniform tends to have an impact when I show up,”
Thompson said.
Now retired, Thompson was not called to testify or be cross examined about his version of events.
Superintendent
Campbell came to testify under a bit of a cloud, having complained that
Commissioner Brenda Lucki had tried to politically interfere in the
Nova Scotia investigation on behalf of the prime minister and other
politicos.
The RCMP has never
laid a serious charge in any of it and has all but disappeared key
witnesses such as ex-con Peter Griffon, Wortman’s biker-connected
handyman and replica police car decorator.
Before he even testified, Campbell was given a sideways promotion and sent off to New Brunswick.
He
returned to Nova Scotia and spent two days talking and answering some
questions from lawyers at the MCC hearings. In the minds of some, he
appeared to have acquitted himself well. Some people were moved by how
Campbell had comported himself, right down to his tears of apparent
contrition. Isn’t it amazing how a few well-timed tears can cause so
many people to suspend their disbelief?
A
former senior RCMP member sent me this message: “As a retired
Superintendent…. I’d like to say some complimentary words on the Supt’s
appearance and testimony before the commission. Is there somewhere I can
post them?”
I told the former Mountie that there was more going on here than the media had let on.
“The
thing you have to remember is that lawyers for the families were not
allowed by the Commission to ask a variety of questions. The fact of the
matter is that for 27 months the RCMP has stated that its response was
near perfect and that it would do the same thing in a similar situation.
Now, the force’s leaders are saying otherwise,” I wrote.
“Thanks, Paul,” he replied. “On 2nd thought, I’ll leave it alone.”
That’s
the part that we are not allowed to see. While it might appear to be a
normal process going on at the inquiry (spinquiry, shurely!-ed.), it is
anything but. The lawyers for the families have strict limitations about
what they can pursue.
When it
came to questioning Campbell, two sources tell me that the lawyers were
restricted from asking questions about charges that were laid against
Lisa Banfield, which were subsequently dropped.
The
lawyers were also prohibited by the MCC from asking Campbell about
anything involving Banfield having spent the night in the woods around
Portapique or her subsequent emergence at 6:30 am. No questions were
allowed about her alleged abuse at the hands of Wortman.
They
couldn’t ask questions about the role played by other RCMP officers,
one of them being then Inspector Dustine Rodier, who was promoted to
Superintendent recently. Rodier was in charge of the 911 Centre and
other communications and was previously the commanding officer at the
Hampton, N.B. detachment.
The
family’s lawyers also could not broach the subject of investigations by
the Serious Incident Response Team into the shoot-up of the Onslow
Belmont firehall or the killing of Wortman at the Irving Big Stop on the
morning of April 19th. Security video from that incident appears to
refute the testimony of two RCMP officers before the MCC, but the
Commission ruled that line of inquiry was out of bounds.
As
one lawyer put it: “Unless we had an actual documentary evidence on
which to base a question, we couldn’t ask. Otherwise, it was promoting
‘conspiracy theories.’ “
That in a nutshell explains the ultimate purpose of the MCC’s innovative use of what it calls “foundational documents.”
Every
witness called to testify has been essentially vetted through previous
interviews which are captured in the foundational documents. Over the
past six months, these documents have either been dribbled out or
released in a torrent, all but overwhelming anyone trying to absorb the
information contained within them.
Meanwhile,
things get left out here and there, like the supporting documents for
much of the financial information about Wortman that was recently
released.
Where are they and why weren’t they available before Campbell and Leather were questioned?
Sometimes
the witnesses in the foundational documents have been called to appear
in the public forum, many other times not. The only rhyme or reason
about who gets called seems to be whether their version of events serves
the larger intended narrative that is desired by the powers to be.
The last witness to be called before the MCC’s summer break was Chief Supt. Leather.
As
previously reported in Frank Magazine, Leather is not a natural
Mountie. He started his career in York Region outside of Toronto and was
one of the rare Mounties to join the force as an officer. He came to
Nova Scotia in September 2019 as the Criminal Operations Officer
(CROPs). His previous assignment in federal policing – Project Busbar –
an international drug smuggling investigation in Ontario had ended in a
fiasco. As is so often the case in the RCMP, he was nevertheless
promoted and moved to a distant posting – Nova Scotia – in a page ripped
out of the Catholic Church personnel manual.
Looking
surprisingly gaunt and nervous, one couldn’t help but get the
impression that Leather is a man who knows he is under the gun. The
chosen scapegoat.
From the time
we first met him during the RCMP press conference alongside Assistant
Commissioner Lee Bergerman, Leather did not make a great first
impression. He seemed unsure of himself, nervous, almost sick to his
stomach.
In the few statements he made after the massacres, he was clearly following the RCMP mantra – deny, deflect etc.
Leather
was on the record as defending the RCMP response. He said that he would
not change a thing about it. He would rely on Twitter. He wouldn’t put
out a public alert.
Now, he appears to have undergone a bit of a change of heart.
Like
Campbell, Leather has supported the political interference story
involving Commissioner Lucki which, considering his current posting in
federal policing in Ottawa – shoulder to shoulder with Lucki – was
either extremely unwise or part of a larger charade.
Leather
protested during the hearing that he was compelled to be “honest,” but
it’s too early to tell what actually is going on. From day one Leather
genuinely appears to have been in the dark about what was really going
on with Wortman before and during the rampages. Maybe he actually was.
There is an important clue, however, that there is more intrigue than first meets the eye.
Leather
appeared a few days earlier in Ottawa to testify before the House
Committee on Public Safety and Security, which is eager to probe the
Lucki political interference story.
He brought along with him his personal lawyer.
Why
does Chris Leather need his own lawyer when it’s quite clear that the
federal Crown is prepared to spend tens of millions of dollars to defend
all the Mounties?
Does Leather see himself as the designated scapegoat?
A
source in Ottawa, close to the committee, said that Leather’s lawyer
has indicated that he is holding an “insurance policy” for his client.
This
has turned into a Quentin Tarantino-esque Mexican standoff, right here
in Nova Scotia. Just about everyone is armed with a lawyer and aiming
their metaphorical guns at everyone else.
You’d think that, before long, something’s gotta give.
If
you haven’t already noticed, something truly strange happened on the
road to finding the truth about what actually happened before, during
and after the Nova Scotia massacres of April 18 and 19, 2020.
Lisa
Banfield and her $1,200-an-hour lawyer, James Lockyer, appear to have
been controlling the show from the very beginning. The Lockyer factor as
a not-so-hidden influencer on the news is important to address.
On
April 19, 2020, just hours after Lisa Banfield arrived at the door of
Leon Joudrey, she contacted lawyer Kevin von Bargen in Toronto to seek
advice and help. The lawyer, a friend of Wortman and Banfield, put her
onto James Lockyer.
From that
moment forward, her every word has been treated as gospel. By the RCMP,
by the Mass Casualty Commission, and by the compliant media. Even those
who believe her to have been a victim of domestic violence at the hands
of Gabriel Wortman (and she clearly was), but also believe she might
know more than she’s letting on — and that what she knows might be
important to the inquiry’s purported fact-finding mission — have been
dismissed as cranks and conspiracists.
According
to financial documents released by the inquiry after Lisa Banfield’s
dramatic “testimony” on July 15, Banfield reported earnings of $15,288
one recent year.
That would cover a day, plus HST, of Lockyer’s valuable time.
He has been on the clock for 27 months or so, his fees covered by taxpayers through the Mass Casualty Commission.
Banfield’s
finances, such as they are, would have been a juicy subject for any
curious lawyer, but she wasn’t allowed to be cross examined. Too
traumatic, remember.
Questions abound.
Why did Banfield hire an esteemed criminal lawyer? Did no one let her in on her status as a victim?
Lockyer
seems like an exotic choice. He made his name from the early ‘90s
onward representing men wrongly convicted of murder, such as Stephen
Truscott, David Milgaard, Robert Baltovich and Guy Paul Morin. Morin was
falsely accused of killing 9-year-old Christine Jessop in Queensville,
Ontario, near Toronto.
I was
the city editor at the Globe and Mail then. I was intimately involved in
the story which was being covered by one of our reporters, Kirk Makin. I
even at one point had a meeting with Makin and Morin’s mother, who
protested his innocence. At the time I was wrongly unmoved and skeptical
of her story, but Makin persisted in digging into it and worked closely
with Lockyer. Morin was eventually exonerated. Kudos to all. I hope I
got smarter after that.
Lockyer,
who lived a block away from me in Toronto, went on to become a champion
of the wrongly convicted and started the Innocence Project to work on
their behalf. Among his many clients was Rubin (Hurricane) Carter, the
former boxer who was wrongly convicted of three murders in Paterson, NJ
and was the inspiration for the 1976 Bob Dylan epic Hurricane.
In
recent years, Lockyer and his Innocence Project became involved in the
case of Nova Scotia’s Glenn Assoun, who was wrongly convicted in 1999 of
murdering Brenda Way in Dartmouth four years earlier.
Lockyer
worked along with lawyers Sean MacDonald and Phil Campbell to have
Assoun’s conviction overturned after he had spent 17 years in prison. In
the final years of that campaign an activist reporter named Tim
Bousquet took on the Assoun case and wrote about it extensively for
years, channeling and publicizing what the lawyers and their
investigators had uncovered. To his credit Bousquet uncovered some
things on his own.
Perhaps
the biggest revelation in the Assoun case was that the RCMP had
destroyed evidence and had mislead the courts about Assoun.
Bousquet
joined with the CBC in 2020 and produced a radio series, Dead Wrong,
about the case. As Canadians should know well by now, both the federal
and Nova Scotia governments ignored what the Mounties were caught doing.
Fast forward to the Nova Scotia massacres and the news coverage of it.
As
I wrote in my recent book, 22 Murders: Investigating the Massacres,
Cover-up and Obstacles to Justice In Nova Scotia, I had a brief fling
with Bousquet and his on-line newspaper, The Halifax Examiner, in 2020.
After
publishing an opening salvo in Maclean’s magazine in May 2020, I
couldn’t find anyone else interested in my reporting, which challenged
the official narrative. Maclean’s writer Stephen Maher introduced me to
Bousquet. I knew nothing about either him or the Halifax Examiner.
Over
the next several weeks, Bousquet published five of my pieces and I was
pleasantly surprised to find that the Examiner punched well above its
weight. Its stories were being picked up and read across the country.
Although I had never met the gruff and the usually difficult-to-reach
Bousquet, I thought we had a mutual interest in keeping the story alive
as the mainstream media was losing interest in it and were moving on. At
first blush, Bousquet seemed like a true, objective journalist
determined to find the truth. Hell, I was even prepared to work for
nothing, just to get the story out.
“I have to pay you, man,” he insisted in one phone call.
I
felt badly taking money from him. I had no idea what his company’s
financial situation might be, and I didn’t want to break the bank. He
said he could pay me $300 or so per story and asked me to submit an
invoice, which I did.
Soon
afterward, a cheque for $1500 arrived. I cashed it and then my wife
Sharonand I sent him $500 each in after tax money as a donation. Like I
said, I didn’t want to be a drag on the Examiner.
Once
we made the donations, Bousquet all but ghosted me. He was always too
busy to take my calls or field my pitches. I couldn’t tell if I was
being cancelled or had been conned.
I
began to replay events in my head and the one thing that leapt out to
me was Bousquet’s defensive and even dismissive reaction to two threads I
thought were important and newsworthy which I wanted to write about.
One
was the politically sensitive issue of writing objectively about all
the women in the story. There were female victims who had slept with
Wortman, which I though was contextually important in understanding the
larger story. Bousquet had made it clear that he wasn’t eager for me to
write about that. (Be trauma informed!-ed.)
There
was also the fact that female police officers were at the intersection
of almost every major event that terrible weekend. The commanding
officer was Leona (Lee) Bergerman. Chief Superintendent Janis Graywas in
charge of the RCMP in Halifax County. Inspector Dustine Rodierran the
communications centre. It was a long list that will continue to grow.
I
believe in equal pay for work of equal value but that comes with equal
accountability for all. I am gender neutral when evaluating
performance.
But it didn’t take psychic powers to detect that gender politics was a big issue with Bousquet – his target market, as it were.
I
really wanted to write about Banfield. My preliminary research strongly
suggested to me her story was riddled with weakness and inconsistency,
but nobody in the mainstream media would tackle it. Hell, for months her
name wasn’t even published anywhere outside the pages of Frank
magazine.
Bousquet’s position
was that Banfield was a victim of domestic violence and that her story,
via vague, second-hand and untested RCMP statements, was to be believed.
No questions asked.
“You’re going to need something really big to convince me otherwise,” Bousquet said in one of our brief conversations.
Afterward,
I did have one face-to-face meeting with him in Halifax. He actually
sat in the back seat of our car because Sharon was in the front. We met
up because I wanted to tell him about sensitive leads I had which, if
pursued, would show that the RCMP had the ability to manipulate its
records and destroy evidence in its PROs reporting system.
Considering
his involvement in the Assoun case, where that very issue was at the
heart of Assoun’s exoneration, I thought Bousquet would be eager to
pursue the story.
As I looked at
him in the rearview mirror, I could sense his discomfort and lack of
interest. So could Sharon who was sitting beside me.
“That was weird,” she said.
Bousquet got out of the car, walked away and disappeared me for good.
It
was all so inexplicable. If this was the new journalism that I was
experiencing, there was something terribly wrong with it. I couldn’t
believe that a journalist like Bousquet who aspired to be a truthteller
felt compelled to distill every word or nuance through a political
filter first or even something more nefarious.
Later,
while writing for Frank Magazine, I broke story after story about the
case. Incontrovertible documents showing that the RCMP was destroying
evidence in the Wortman case. The Pictou County Public Safety channel
recordings showing for the first time what the RCMP was doing on the
ground during the early morning hours of April 19. The 911 tapes. The
Enfield Big Stop videos. That Lisa Banfield lied in small claims court
on two different occasions.
Bousquet
either ignored or ridiculed most of those stories in the Halifax
Examiner or on his Twitter feed, as if I were making the stories up.
For
the most part throughout 2021, the Halifax Examiner didn’t even bother
covering the larger story. There was no discernible legwork or energy
being expended on it. And regarding the stories he did publish, I began
to see a pattern. Naïve readers might have thought that he was digging
for new stories when in fact the Examiner was merely mining court
documents and uncritically reporting what resided therein. It was all
stenography, straight from the mouths of the RCMP and the MCC.
Time
and time again, “new” stories would be published which were essentially
no different from previous ones but all with the same theme: as Ray
Daviesof the Kinks put it in his masterpiece Sunny Afternoon: “Tales of
drunkenness and cruelty.”
The
Monster and the Maiden stories, as I called them, reinforced in readers'
minds that Banfield was a helpless victim controlled by a demonic
Wortman, a narrative that, upon reflection, seemed to perfectly suit
Lockyer’s strategy.
For 27
months the RCMP and the Mass Casualty Commission played along,
sheltering Banfield as part of their “trauma-informed” mandate, even
though there was plenty to be skeptical about her story.
Banfield
was beside Wortman for 19 years during which he committed crime after
crime. She was reportedly the last person to be with Wortman and her
incredible, hoary tale of escape should have been enough to raise
suspicions about her.
From the
moment she knocked on Leon Joudrey’s door she has been treated as a
victim, which to this day astounds law enforcement experts and others
who have monitored the case. Many observers, including but not limited
to lawyers representing the families of the victims, have serious
questions about how Banfield spent the overnight hours of April 18/19.
Not helping matters is that she doesn’t appear to have been subjected to
any level of normal criminal investigation or evidence gathering. Her
clothing wasn’t tested. There were no gunshot residue tests. She wasn’t
subjected to a polygraph or any other credible investigative procedure.
Enter James Lockyer of the Innocence Project.
The puppetification of Tim Bousquet
As
we moved closer to July 15, the day that Banfield would be “testifying”
at the MCC, it is also important to consider what Bousquet and his
minions were doing at the Halifax Examiner.
In
the weeks and days leading up to Banfield’s appearance, the Examiner’s
reporting and Bousquet’s Twitter commentary began to take on an
illogical, more contemptuous and even hostile approach to anyone who
refused to buy into the RCMP and Banfield’s official version of events.
In
a series of hilariously one-sided diatribes, Bousquet lashed out at
Banfield’s critics whom he wouldn’t name. Some (likely us) were
“bad-faith actors.” He decried the “witchification” of Banfield.
He
tweeted: “And just to repeat for the 1000th time: I’ve read transcripts
of interviews with dozens of people. I’ve read three years’ of emails
between Banfield and GW. I’ve read her Notes app. There is ZERO evidence
that she had any prior knowledge (of) GW’s intent to kill people…. The
notion that she is ‘complicit’ is pulled out of people’s diarrhetic
asses and plain old-fashioned misogyny.”
Oh, misogyny, that old woke slimeball to be hurled at any male who dare be critical of any female.
One
can’t help but sense the deft hand of a clever and experienced defence
lawyer running up the back of Bousquet’s shirt. That makes sense.
Look at what has transpired on Lockyer’s watch.
Since
April 2020, the RCMP and the federal and provincial governments have
wrapped themselves in a single, vague and inappropriate platitude –
trauma informed.
The original
selling point was that this approach would prevent the surviving family
members from being further traumatized by the ongoing “investigation”
into the massacres.
What actually happened is much more sinister.
Lisa
Banfield was coddled and protected the entire time not only by the
authorities but also by Lockyer’s friends in the mass media. The wily
old fox had the opportunity to mainline his thoughts into the Globe and
Mail, the Toronto Star, the CBC, CTV and Global News who unquestioningly
lapped it up.
At
the MCC, Banfield wasn’t allowed to be cross examined because, as Mr.
Lockyer so eloquently explained, cross examination would just lead to
more conspiracy theories.
That’s rich.
The
search for the truth will only confuse matters -- it’s better for
everyone that Banfield spin a much-rehearsed tale without challenge.
That’s clearly a $1,200-an-hour lawyer speaking.
The
whole world has gone topsy-turvy. The Mass Casualty Commission, the
federal and provincial governments, the RCMP and Lisa Banfield are now
aligned on one side of the argument.
Meanwhile, the re-traumatized families find themselves agreeing with this magazine and other skeptics and critics.
The
final irony is that the Halifax Examiner bills itself as being
“independent” and “adversarial.” It seems to be neither these days.
In the end, Tim Bousquet’s approach to covering the Nova Scotia Massacres is, to use his words: “Dead Wrong.”
Paul
Palango is author of the best selling book 22 Murders: Investigating
the massacres, cover-up and obstacles to justice in Nova Scotia (Random
House).
A
34-second snippet of audio tape showed that Gabriel Wortman was
considered to be a person of interest in the still-unsolved murder of a
Dartmouth man in 2004, according to a long-time friend of the mass
killer’s.
It looked like the perfect story.
The
dead man’s name was Kevin James Petrie. He was 50 years old when he was
bludgeoned on March 17, 2004. He died 11 days later. He lived in the
same Dartmouth neighbourhood where Wortman had his denturist office and
once owned a house. He was a thief and sold things to Wortman. He was
into motorbikes, just like Wortman. He used to be a bumboy for local
Hells Angels boss Randy Mersereau before Mersereau was whacked back in
1999.
There was that seductive,
irresistible audio tape from 2004 in which two 'RCMPdetectives'
questioned Wortman as a person of interest and told him that Kevin was
dead. They didn’t actually utter the name Kevin, but Robert Doucette,
Wortman’s carpenter friend, said he turned on his trusty tape recorder
at the first mention of Kevin and caught some of the conversation. He
assured us he was there and the conversation was exactly as recorded. It
went like this:
'Wortman': “Ohhhh god.”
'Mountie': “You don’t seem too surprised to hear that. Why is that?”
'Wortman': “I had a vision that it was so.”
'Mountie': “So when was the last time you saw him, I mean, other than your dream?”
(At
this point there is a six to seven second delay as 'Wortman' considers
his response and then he does what might be described as an almost
disembodied mantra. He goes on for about six seconds in a sing-songy
fashion.)
Four of us were in the
room listening to this and bought the story, but in retrospect there
were clues that should have set off alarm bells.
Doucette
started playing the tape to us before we had even settled into the room
and after he played it, we all but ignored it moving onto other aspects
that we wanted to explore.
Doucette said he had given the tape to RCMP investigators but they had done nothing with it.
We
took a copy of the tape and afterwards we listened to it carefully. It
seemed so real, even if the quality of the recording seemed more
professional than something captured on a hidden, old-school tape
recorder concealed in a pocket.
The timing also fit with something I had written in my recently published book, 22 Murders:
In
the summer of 2003, Wortman threatened to shoot a neighbour, John
Hudson, if he stepped onto the Portland Street property to help (Lisa)
Banfield with her luggage. Later, the incident would be described as an
example of Gabriel’s extreme jealousy. But his cartoonish defence of his
possessions and property was starting to look like something more
prosaic than jealousy. He was acting like a prototypical criminal who
was leery of and unnerved by other criminals – or the police – getting
too close to his stash. He mounted surveillance cameras around his
business in Dartmouth and his properties in Portapique.
We
were in a bit of a quandary. It was the kind of story you couldn’t just
go out and have verified. We already know that the RCMP has been
playing games galore on this file, so we couldn’t go to them. After all,
we had published documents showing that the RCMP was destroying
documents in the case back in the summer of 2020. That’s verified.
The
other reality was that trying to dig into this story was like
maneuvering through a den of snakes. Hardly anyone will co-operate on
the record be they family, friends, neighbours, politicians or police.
Everyone is afraid of everyone else.
The
decision was made to throw it into the public forum and perhaps spark
some interest in the Petrie murder, for which the Province of Nova
Scotiahad put up a $150,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
It would also raise the issue of whether Wortman was a suspect in other
unsolved murders.
Yeah, we were doing a public service.
Frank
Magazineran the story. It put the tape on its website and we all lit up
a congratulatory, if not metaphorical cigar, and quietly enjoyed our
scoop, such as it was.
On Sunday night, July 10, Jordan Bonaparte and I did our regular Nighttime Podcast segment and talked about the story.
Monday morning, I was awakened early by every telecommunications device in my home dinging and pinging.
Something was going on.
Yikes! Yikes! Yikes!
An
enterprising listener to the Nighttime Podcast was bothered by the
tape. To him, it all sounded so scripted, like something he had heard
before. After he got up that morning, he entered the phrases into his
search engine and came up with a perfect match. It was from an episode
of the ninth season of the television series CSI.
There was no doubt about it, but what to do?
I
tried calling and texting Doucette, but he wasn’t picking up. I knew
that he had a court appearance in Dartmouth at 1:30 p.m. for a trial on
domestic assault charges which were ultimately withdrawn.
Frank editor Andrew Douglas and I made it our mission to meet there.
I
got there early. I couldn’t help but notice that directly across the
street from the Provincial Court facilities was the house at 269
Pleasant Street where Petrie had been beaten in a suspected home
invasion.
As I turned the corner to the front door, there was Doucette standing alone.
“Hey, brother,” he said, seemingly oblivious to the havoc he had caused.
“What the hell did you do?” I asked.
He genuinely seemed flummoxed.
I played the audio of the CSI scene for him and said: “You said you taped this. It’s from a CSI episode.”
“It sounds similar,” Doucette said.
“It’s not similar,” I said. “It’s exactly the same.”
Doucette
said he couldn’t explain what had happened. He said that he had played
the tape for RCMP officers during his first interviews with them on
April 19 and 23, 2020.
He said
the Mounties took both his cell phone and the recorder and didn’t return
them to him for 10 days. In an earlier interview with him, he did say
that he thought things were missing from his telephone when he got it
back. He had never mentioned the tape recorder until that moment.
“I thought the original tape was longer, but I hadn’t listened to it for years. It was in my drawer,” Doucette said.
“Are you suggesting that the RCMP deleted the original tape and replaced it with a conversation from CSI?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“So,
the question remains,” I asked: “Did two RCMP detectives really come to
Wortman’s denturist office when you were there and ask him about Kevin
Petrie?”
“They did,” he said. “I was there when it happened. I can’t explain what happened on the recorder.”
Neither can we, but the fact remains that we should have done better. (Regrets, we have a few… - ed.)
In
regards to questions about what this episode does to Robert Doucette’s
credibility on other matters involving Gabriel Wortman, well, it doesn’t
help, certainly. But considering how long this man was friends with the
killer, and how much of his information has been corroborated
elsewhere, I would argue this unfortunate episode doesn’t completely
hinder his credibility either. We’ll let you be the ultimate arbiter.
Gabriel Wortman and the 2004 cold case murder of Kevin Petrie
July 7, 2022
FRANK MAGAZINE JULY 7, 2022
THIRD OF THREE
Gabriel Wortman and the 2004 cold case murder of Kevin James Petrie
by Paul Palango
A
34-second snippet of audio tape shows that Gabriel Wortman was
considered to be a person of interest in the still-unsolved murder of a
Dartmouth man in 2004, according to a longtime friend of the mass
killer’s.
Court records show
that at the time of his murder Kevin James Petrie was a 50-year-old
career criminal who had been charged more than a dozen times with drug
trafficking, various thefts and assaults between 1993 and 2000. Police
believe Petrie had been assaulted during an apparent home invasion at
269 Pleasant Street in Dartmouth. He died 11 days later after being
found in medical distress at 7132 Spruce Street near the intersection of
Joseph Howe Drive and Highway 102 in Halifax.
An
autopsy showed he had died from the effects of blunt force trauma to
the head. In March 2019, the fifteenth anniversary of Petrie’s murder,
the Nova Scotia Department of Justice offered a $150,000 reward to help
solve the murder.
Robert
Doucette, who worked as Wortman’s carpenter and sidekick for almost 20
years says he was with Wortman at his denturist business at 193 Portland
Street in Dartmouth when two plain clothes RCMP investigators walked
through the door and introduced themselves.
The
Mounties were likely assigned to the Halifax Regional Police/RCMP
Integrated Major Crime Unit. Doucette said the mood was casual and
informal.
They said they had
come to ask Wortman about a person whom they described as “Kevin.” At
the time Doucette said he knew of “a booster” named Kevin who did
“business” with Wortman but didn’t know Kevin’s last name. “Kevin was
just a little common thief … that used to hang around with us quite a
bit. He used to pop in and sell stuff to Gabriel,” Doucette said in an
interview with myself, Nighttime Podcast host Jordan Bonaparte and
citizen investigators Chad Jones and Ryan Potter.
“The
only time I ever seen Kevin was when I happened to be there and he
would come and sell stolen stuff for 40 per cent of the cost. He sold
meat for half the cost. I always wondered what happened to Kevin,
myself.”
At one point during
their estimated 35-40-minute conversation with Wortman, the Mounties
honed in on the big question all murder detectives ask: when did you
last see the victim?
It was at
this point Doucette reached into his pocket and activated the mini tape
recorder he always carried with him. He captured only about 34 seconds
of what was being said before he thinks he accidentally turned off the
device hidden in his pocket. He captured an exchange between the
detective and Wortman, just after the police mentioned Kevin’s name:
Mountie: “….he’s also dead.”
Wortman: “ohhhh god.”
Mountie: “You don’t seem too surprised to hear that. Why is that?”
Wortman: “I had a vision that it was so.”
Mountie: “So when was the last time you saw him, I mean, other than your dream?”
(At
this point there is a six to seven second delay as Wortman considers
his response and then Wortman does what might be described as an almost
disembodied mantra. He goes on for about six seconds in a sing-songy
fashion.)
There
is brief laughter, and then a final indecipherable last comment -
possibly “yes, but Stephen and I…” - after Wortman’s chant at which
point Doucette believes he accidentally turned off the tape in his
pocket.
Even to the untrained
ear, Wortman appeared to zone out – dissemble – when asked about Petrie,
like a child being caught stealing from the cookie jar.
After
Wortman’s killing spree in April 2020, Doucette says he was interviewed
up to seven times by Mountie investigators about what he knew about
Wortman, whom he had known for almost 20 years. At one point Doucette
said that he played the tape for RCMP but that the Mounties showed no
interest in pursuing its possible importance. It doesn't appear anything
about the tape has been released to the Mass Casualty Commission
investigating Wortman’s deadly rampage which left 22 Nova Scotians
dead.
The revelation that
Wortman was either a person of interest or a suspect in a previous
murder flies in the face of previous denials from the RCMP that it had
ever encountered him in a criminal case. It is also another example of
the RCMP’s faulty institutional memory about Wortman, including
allegations about domestic violence, possession of guns, having and
driving a replica police car and his alleged threat to kill a police
officer.
Doucette, who was living near Shubenacadie at the time, does not know if the police conducted further interviews with Wortman.
It
appears apparent, however, that the timing of the spring 2004 meeting
coincided with Wortman’s move to beef up his security. I described what
was going on in Wortman’s life around that time in my recent book, 22
Murders: Investigating the Massacres, Cover-up and Obstacles to Justice
in Nova Scotia.
In
the summer of 2003, Wortman threatened to shoot a neighbour, John
Hudson, if he stepped onto the Portland Street property to help (Lisa)
Banfield with her luggage. Later, the incident would be described as an
example of Gabriel’s extreme jealousy. But his cartoonish defence of his
possessions and property was starting to look like something more
prosaic than jealousy. He was acting like a prototypical criminal who
was leery of and unnerved by other criminals – or the police – getting
too close to his stash. He mounted surveillance cameras around his
business in Dartmouth and his properties in Portapique.
That
the Petrie murder investigators appeared to think of Wortman as a
person of interest or suspect seems to provide additional context and
support about Wortman’s inner world during that period.
For
example, at this point Wortman was in the early stages of a personal
relationship with Halifax Regional Police Constable Barry Warnell.
Warnell, the longest serving active member of the force, has stated in
interviews provided to the Mass Casualty Commisison that he was friends
with Wortman due to their mutual interest in real estate. Warnell also
purchased the house Wortman had lived in on Pine Street in Dartmouth
after Wortman’s first marriage ended.
Doucette
claims that Wortman told him that the deal with Warnell wasn’t as
straightforward as it might have seemed. Doucette says that Wortman told
him that he had returned money from the sale to Warnell for some
reason.
Another interesting
twist, Halifax police sources say, is that while Warnell was one of the
highest paid officers on the force because of his penchant for pulling
overtime, until 2007 he had been active in undercover roles. That raises
the question of whether Warnell’s contact with Wortman had been
personal, professional or a mix of both. Wortman’s common-law wife, Lisa
Banfield, entered Wortman’s life around 2001 after the end of her first
marriage to Michael Wagner. Throughout the early stages of the
relationship there was much volatility. At one point Banfield’s father,
Gilbert, offered to move her out of Wortman’s house. Over the years, she
told various people that Wortman was difficult to live with and that
she feared for her and her family’s life, if she left him.
One
potential line of questioning for her July 15 testimony before the Mass
Casualty Commission: Did you know about the Petrie murder or
investigation, and did that play a part in your almost leaving him in
the spring of 2004? (While we're on the topic of potential questions for
Lisa B: During an email exchange between Banfield and Wortman from May
of 2019 released to the commission, she welcomes him to "the cult".
What's that all about?)
Robert
Doucette, meanwhile, sees his old friend Wortman in an even more
sinister light. He spent a lot of time with him and heard and saw things
that disturb him to this day.
“I
really think he might have been a serial killer,” Doucette says. “He
had barrels of lye and sulphuric acid underneath his deck. Him talking
about the best way to get rid of bodies.”
Doucette
said Wortman never talked about killing anyone in particular, but more
about how to get rid of a body – the theory of the perfect murder, as it
were. He used to tell him that the foremost obstacle to getting rid of a
body were teeth.
“Teeth don’t burn,” he used to say. “All you gotta do is smash them.”
Fires were Wortman’s specialty, though, Doucette said. “Gabe was a fire bug. The bigger the fire the better.”
Wherever
Wortman went, timely fires seemed to follow, providing insurance cash
or, as in the case of a building next to his Dartmouth office in the
early 2000s, a way to create a desired parking lot.
“I
didn’t think much of it at the time, but after all these murders were
committed, I figured he might be part of the missing people. I think he
was killing people, especially native women,” speculated Doucette.
He
cited a strange moment he observed during the six months he lived in a
trailer at 136 Orchard Beach Drive in Portapique while building
Wortman’s warehouse. It was the middle of the night – around 2 or 3 a.m.
– when he was awakened and looked out a window. “He backed his truck
down there 300 yards – maybe 500 yards,” Doucette recalled. “He was down
there maybe 20 minutes or half an hour. He’d bring the truck back then
get in his loader. He went back and moved the whole brush pile maybe 20
feet and then set it on fire.” It was curious behaviour and Doucette
learned over the course of his precarious life not to get too curious
when in the company of potentially dangerous people.
“Was Wortman a hitman?” Chad Jones asked.
“Hit men don’t get rid of their bodies,” Doucette replied.
“Was
he a cleaner?” Ryan Potter asked, wondering if Wortman, with his
mortician pedigree, would be a likely person the bad guys might hire to
dispose of a body.
“That’s possible, too,” Doucette said.
The answers to those questions are all unknown.
The
important thing to note is that the Mass Casualty Commission appears to
be all but allergic to finding those answers, dismissing anything about
Wortman’s criminal activities as unimportant in the search for the
truth.
All that matters, it seems, is to make Lisa Banfield and any others who may know the real story feel comfortable.
Now,
these new revelations from Robert Doucette places an enormous elephant
in the room which begs another obvious question: Was Gabriel Wortman a
person of interest or suspect in other murders?
Paul
Palango is author of the best selling book 22 Murders: Investigating
the massacres, cover-up and obstacles to justice in Nova Scotia (Random
House).
When the Future mass killer shunned his friend Part 2
July 5, 2022
FRANK MAGAZINE JULY 5, 2022 2ND OF 3 STORIES
When the future mass killer shunned his friend Carpenter Rob for shooting his friend the bear
By Paul Palango
Meet
Robert Arthur Mitchell Crowdog Taylor Doucette, otherwise known as Rob
the Carpenter, Gabriel Wortman’s right-hand man for almost two decades.
He
wears his greying hair tied back into a tight, single braid, and has
been described as “scary” by some who have come across him. He admits
that’s true – but says he’s not as scary as he looks.
He
likes to wear a leather vest with patches on it, but the vest is a
handed down family treasure that his great, great grandfather began
wearing in 1897. Then there is a moose leather jacket that is 120 years
old.
“People think I am a biker when all I am is a fucking Indian,” he said at one point during a series of interviews.
“I
look like a pretty intimidating guy. I’ve looked this way since I was
16 years old. People see me coming and they cross the street but that’s
not who I am. It’s just my protection. I’m totally the opposite. I go to
work. I come home. I do crafts. I carve peace pipes. I do leather
work.”
Crowdog, as he likes to
be called to acknowledge his proud Mi’kmaqheritage, was born and raised
in the Yarmouth, N.S. area, spending much of his brutal childhood in the
foster care system.
“I spent my first 14 years living in a wire dog cage,” he recalled.
“By
the time I was 10, I had spent more time in hospital than most people
do in their entire lives. I didn’t learn to read as a child because I
was always working. I finally taught myself to read when I was 26.”
He
met his birth father when he was 15, who soon led him into the wider
underbelly of the world, much of which Doucette refuses to discuss.
He even has policing in his blood.
He
says his maternal grandfather was the notorious Verdun Mitchell,
Halifax police chief in the ‘50s and ‘60s, who himself was a suspect in
the still-unsolved 1955 murder of Halifax businessman Michael Leo Resk.
Mitchell committed suicide in a washroom at Halifax police headquarters
in 1968. Another relative was a police chief in Saskatchewan.
Doucette
was working in 1999 or 2000 as a bouncer at the Ship Victory bar and
restaurant in Dartmouth. He remembers the moment as if it were
yesterday. It involved a member of the Rock Machine motorcycle club, the
enemies of the Hells Angels in the Quebec biker war which was ongoing
at the time.
“Somebody came in wearing a Rock Machine T-shirt,” Doucette recalled.
“I
told him to take it off. He wouldn’t take it off so I took him outside
and took it off him. Gabriel praised me when I came back into the bar.”
“Are you a Hells Angel?” I asked.
“No, I am not a Hells Angel, but I do have acquaintances who are Hells Angels.”
In
the ensuing years Doucette had a hand in building everything Wortman
owned in Nova Scotia – his log cabin cottage and warehouse/man den in
Portapiqueand his denturist office on Portland Street in Dartmouth.
They
drank and partied together. Doucette was on the inside of just about
everything in Wortman’s life until they had a falling out in the fall of
2018.
After the massacres, a
photograph circulated of Wortman feeding Tostitos out of the bag to a
full grown wild black bear off the deck of his cottage at 200 Portapique
Beach Road.
“It was going after somebody else’s dog … so I killed the bear,” Doucette said.
But
before that falling out, Doucette accrued a thousand stories about
Wortman, enough knowledge to compel him to call 911 on the morning of
April 19, 2020. He had heard on the news that the police had named
Wortman as the man who was dressed as a Mountie and driving a replica
Mountie cruiser while killing people – eventually 22 in all.
It was 10:12:15 a.m. when he called 911.
“I’m just wondering if you guys are aware of what weapons he has,” he said, all but discombobulating the 911 operator.
“Ahm, can you ah, why, how you, how would you know sir, how many weapons he has?” the operator nervously asked.
“I
know he has an AR-15, he has a Barrett 50 caliber sniper rifle. I know
he’s got a Glock 40 and he’s got an assault 12-gauge shotgun.”
“Do you know if these are all legally obtained?” the operator asked.
“No,
they’re all brought across the border. He’s been smuggling out of
Maine for probably the last 20 years,” Doucette said, adding a few
seconds later: “He also has two cases of nail grenades.”
Doucette
also told the operator that Wortman had a stockpile of official decals
from the RCMP, Halifax Police, fire chiefs and postal vans.
“I was warning them to look out for the others,” Doucette said afterward.
“(RCMP
Constable) Heidi (Stevenson) was still alive when I called. I knew they
were approaching (Wortman) with caution, but I was saying that they
should be approaching with even more caution.”
Doucette said he called 911 because he was trying to save lives.
That’s not the image of him stored in police data banks.
On
December 20th last year, Doucette was visiting a female friend who
owned a vicious Serbian Rottweiler, a dog with a massive head and
enormous biting power. Doucette said the dog attacked him and he had to
fight it off. He still has puncture wounds on various parts of his
anatomy.
Halifax police showed
up and the owner of the dog, fearing that the animal would be seized
told the police that Doucette had attacked her and that the dog had
intervened.
The police charged Doucette with assault. His trial is scheduled for July 11.
But nothing in that matter is as it seems.
We
met the woman in question a few weeks ago. She drove Doucette to a book
signing event at Chapters in Dartmouth. She looked presentable and once
had an impressive job, but something was not right about her. We soon
learned that she had serious psychiatric issues, but the police didn’t
want to hear that, apparently. The disclosure documents provided to
Doucette’s lawyer described him as being “a police hater” and “an
associate of Gabriel Wortman” and “violent.”
“I may look like a violent guy, but I’m a peacemaker,” Doucette said.
“They
call me an associate of Wortman’s. I was trying to save lives and they
(the police) make it look like I was fucking involved. They call me a
police hater, but one of my best friends is a cop in Toronto.”
Also
in Toronto, his older brother David Doucette tragically died in a
suicide-by-cop incident outside a Spadina Road rooming house in 2015.
Back
in Nova Scotia, it appears to be a police strategy to minimize,
discredit and even make disappear anything that Doucette has tried to
offer up about Wortman and his life. In many ways it is similar to what
happened to Portapique resident Leon Joudrey.
Joudrey
took in Wortman’s common-law wife Lisa Banfield at 6:34 a.m. on April
19. Joudrey, a woodsman, didn’t believe Banfield’s story about being in
the woods for more than eight hours on a freezing night. The RCMP not
only ignored him but eventually had Joudrey charged and locked up in a
psychiatric facility.
Although
he doesn’t hate the police, Doucette doesn’t trust them either. That’s
one of the reasons that over the years he carried a mini recorder that
he could switch on when times became interesting for him.
Over the years he enjoyed one of the clearest windows into Wortman’s wild world.
Through a woman he was dating in 2000, Doucette met denturist Gina Goulet.
“My company name was the Horseman’s Hammer. I built every horse barn between Windsor and Truro.”
The
Registry of Joint Stocks says the Horseman’s Hammer General
Contracting, a sole proprietorship, operated out of Nine Mile River for
several years beginning in 2004.
Doucette said his girlfriend had him build fences for Goulet.
“Gabriel
went with me to do the estimate. I had the impression that (Wortman and
Goulet) knew each other. They didn’t say that but I thought that.”
Goulet would become the 22nd and last of Wortman’s victims.
He said Wortman was on a never-ending hunt for sex.
“Gabriel would chase everything from 18 to 80,” he said.
“He was a pig that way. He would just go up to women and say: “I would like to fuck you.”
He
described attending hot tub parties in the Portapique area, including
those at Brenda Forbes’s house on Portapique Beach Road.
“He’d
just go with a bunch of booze, strip off and climb in the hot tub.
Everybody else would just shoo …. and get out of the hot tub. Gabriel
was built like a donkey. Wasn’t a whole lot of women who wanted that
near them,” he said, indicating with a chop of his hand that Wortman’s
penis hung halfway down to his knee.
Doucette said that Lisa Banfield didn’t like him hanging around, but that he wasn’t all that fond of her either.
“To my mind she was the controlling one,” Doucette said, echoing comments made by others, as reported previously.
“She
didn’t like anyone hanging around that Gabe liked. One time Gabe, me
and some guys were sitting around having a beer and Lisa marched in and
said to Gabe: ‘You, come with me, right now.’ He jumped up and went with
her.”
Doucette said that he
witnessed moments of friction between the two but didn’t ever witness
Wortman hitting or abusing Banfield. He did see him jack up her
Mercedes, remove all the wheels and throw them into the river in one fit
of pique.
Another time he heard Lisa say through a closed door: “Don’t you ever put a gun to my head, again.”
On the other hand, the day after one row between the couple, Doucette said that it was Wortman who was sporting a black eye.
From
Doucette’s vantage point, Wortman was a complicated character, driven
by money, sex and his love of his Portapique property. He wanted to own
the entire area. The people he liked he liked a lot, almost to the point
of taking ownership of them. He would give dentures away to people who
needed them but if he thought a customer could afford to pay, Wortman
wanted every last cent owing to him.
“One
time we were in his office in Dartmouth, near where Lisa usually sat,
and Gabe saw a customer go by who owed him $20 for a $3200 set of
dentures,” Doucette remembered.
“Gabe rushed out the door and took the teeth right out of the guy’s mouth.”
Yet
Doucette described Wortman’s affection for an elderly couple who lived
across the road from his cottage. In the last stages of the man’s life,
the Victorian Order of Nurses would tend to him. Wortman would often be
there overseeing what was going on. When the man died at age 93 or so,
Wortman irrationally blamed the VON nurses for killing him.
Ironically, it seems, Wortman’s 18th and 19th victims were VON nurses Kristin Beaton and Heather O’Brien.
Everything
about Wortman was confounding, Doucette says. He was addicted to
criminal behaviour. His warehouse was filled with stolen goods. He was
at one and the same time dodging the police and pretending to be them –
or was he pretending?
“That’s a good question,” Doucette said. “I really wonder.”
On Wortman's outlaw biker ties, where he stashed his secret phone, and Lisa's history of ammo buys
Border officials knew mass killer smuggled guns, but was allowed to keep his NEXUS pass
By Paul Palango
A
Halifax-area man who was close to Gabriel Wortman for almost 20 years
says the RCMP failed to turn over full transcripts of his interviews in
disclosures to the Mass Casualty Commission.
Robert
Doucette told the police tales about, among other things, Wortman’s
cell phone, his cache of grenades, a curious incident at the Canadian
border and how he was there when Wortman’s common-law wife Lisa
Banfieldfired off some rounds from a Glock 40 handgun and had been
purchasing ammunition for Wortman for almost a decade.
Frank
Magazine recently provided Doucette with copies of his statements
released by the Mass Casualty Commission. After reviewing those
documents, Doucette said that his statements appear to be strategically
edited or sanitized to remove his recollection of some of the criminal
and other potentially controversial behaviours by Wortman.
Until
recently, Doucette, 56, had largely been known as the mysterious Rob
The Carpenter, who helped Wortman build his cottage on Portapique Beach
Road, his warehouse on Orchard Beach Drive and his denturist office on
Portland Street in Dartmouth, among other things.
Doucette
has never been interviewed by the media. After a series of preliminary
interviews, Doucette agreed to a three-hour filmed interview which was
conducted at an undisclosed location on the afternoon of July 1 by
myself, Nighttime Podcast host Jordan Bonaparte and citizen
investigators Chad Jones and Ryan Potter.
In
Doucette’s estimation, somewhere between a third and one half of what
he told police in those interviews never made it onto the public record.
He said he recently provided his lawyer with the interviews from the
MCC website.
“I just gave her a
copy as reading material. I didn’t tell her anything was missing… She
told me there must be a lot missing because you get sentences and then
there is a comment. There just seems that there’s something missed out."
Doucette said his interviews published by the MCC on its website are very misleading.
“The
statements appear to indicate that I spoke with them two or three
times. In fact, investigators came to see me seven times. They came so
often that I was kicked out of my apartment In Halifax by my landlord.
He had some tax issues and the neighbour across the street was a cocaine
dealer who complained to my landlord about all the police hanging
around.”
The smuggling runs
Wortman
had been smuggling cigarettes, drugs and guns across the border since
his days at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton from 1987 to
1991.
According to government
documents released by the Mass Casualty Commission he had been targeted
for investigation on numerous occasions beginning in at least 2008 and
over the subsequent six years. Nevertheless, he was granted a NEXUS
trusted traveler pass on April 1, 2015. Eight months later, Wortman was
again targeted by customs officers. Afterward, he was not targeted
again. The NEXUS pass was reevaluated in 2018, but not revoked by the
CBSA.
A heavily redacted CBSA
internal communication on the MCC website — an email dated October 22,
2020 with the subject line ‘(Heads Up) Nova Scotia shooting’ — notes
that ‘He was a NEXUS member’. In Wortman’s ‘client profile’ (contact
information, DOB, etc), his NEXUS status is listed as ‘cancelled’.
Although no date is given, one can assume it was a postmortem revocation
of privileges.
Doucette said
he accompanied Wortman on two smuggling runs from Houlton, Maine to
Woodstock, N.B.between 2016 and 2017. Doucette didn’t cross the border
either time. Although the Nova Scotia-born and raised Doucette said he
lived in the United States in the past, he had once smuggled into Canada
a case of six M-16 rifles stolen from the U.S. military which placed him
in jeopardy with U.S. authorities.
Doucette
said that in the first run he got out of Wortman’s vehicle on the
Canadian side and had to wait “a day and a half to two days” for Wortman
to return. He was vague about what he did killing time during that
period.
“I was just there. I can hang out anywhere,” he said.
When
they got back to Portapique, Wortman showed him the AR-15 assault rifle
that he had smuggled. It was hidden in a false exhaust that Doucette
said he had constructed under the truck.
“The
truck looked like it had dual exhausts but one of the exhausts wasn’t
an exhaust. It looked like it went into the engine and came out the back
of the truck. The middle looked like it was under a skid plate but that
was just an empty compartment.”
On
the second run to the border, Doucette said that Wortman returned in
about two hours with another AR-15 and a 50-calibre Barrett sniper
rifle, a weapon that currently retails for about $5,000. But something
strange happened.
“He drove right past me and went somewhere else for an hour and a half. He then came back and picked me up,” Doucette said.
Wortman never explained the purpose of the side trip and Doucette was not about to ask him.
“That tells me that he had more in there and sold it somewhere,” Doucette said.
“If
he was a (police) agent they’d have to photograph it all,” I said,
repeating what I had been told by police sources familiar with such
situations.
“I would imagine
that,” Doucette said, adding that he didn’t know whether Wortman was
working with the RCMP, but considering what had happened it was not
beyond the realm of possibility.
In her statements to the RCMP, Banfield said that Wortman hid smuggled goods on the bed of his truck, under the tonneau cover.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Doucette said dismissively.
It is not known what happened to Wortman’s black Ford 150 Platinum.
A call from the Canadian Border Services Agency
About
six weeks after Wortman had smuggled the Barrett sniper rifle into
Canada, Doucette said he received a call out of the blue from a CBSA
agent, whose name he didn’t recall.
Doucette said he had no idea how the CBSA knew his name, phone number or details about Wortman’s smuggling run.
“He asked me about the two guns (the Barrett and AR-15),” Doucette said. “I have no idea how they knew about them.”
The
conversation didn’t go far, Doucette said, but it raises questions
about what law enforcement knew about Wortman’s activities during that
time period.
In the earliest
days after the massacres, Nova Scotia RCMP commanding officers Chris
Leather and Darren Campbell indicated that Wortman was never on their
radar for his criminal activities – at least not in Nova Scotia.
However,
it should be noted that in 2016 the RCMP’s J Division in New Brunswick
initiated three major operations focused on the Hells Angels and its
expansion into the Maritimes. Projects Trident, Thunder and
Thunderstruck were joint forces operations involving, among others, the
Fredericton and Halifax police departments as well as Border Security.
The primary targets of the multi-agency investigation were Hells Angels
Nomads Robin Moulton and Emery “Pit” Martin who were arrested and
charged in 2017 and 2018 respectively, and imprisoned.
Moulton
resided near Woodstock, NB and when arrested was found to be carrying a
9mm Beretta handgun, a model that Wortman was known to have smuggled
into Canada around that time.
Wortman’s cell phone
The
RCMP and Lisa Banfield have insisted from the start that Wortman did
not use a cell phone and that all calls to him were handled by
Banfield.
Robert Doucette says otherwise.
He
first brought up Wortman having a cell phone on April 19, 2020 at his
first interview with police, which was conducted by Halifax Detective
Constable Anthony McGrath. Doucette said the interview took place at
RCMP headquarters at 80 Garland Avenue in Dartmouth.
In the 40-page transcript, Doucette is quoted as saying, “He can watch every one of his properties from his phone.”
Although
the time of the interview isn’t given, it’s clear we are very early in
the proceeding, as Doucette at least isn’t even aware that Wortman’s
rampage had come to an end. So only a few hours, at most, had elapsed
since Lisa Banfield (allegedly!-ed.) emerged from the woods in
Portapique and told Const. Terry Brown that Wortman didn’t have a cell
phone of his own.
Four days
later on April 23, Constable Dayle Burris and Corporal Kathryn MacLeod
conducted a follow up 31-minute interview with Doucette.
“Rob, every little detail is important,” Burris said at one point. “Don’t leave anything out.”
But the meandering line of questioning didn’t include any attempt to find out more about the phone.
Meanwhile,
in his interview with us, Doucette said that over the years Wortman was
disciplined about his secret phone, the number to which he never gave
out, even to Doucette.
“He hid it in the door panel of the truck. It was always in silent mode,” Doucette said.
“Lisa
didn’t even know about it. I saw it. It was an Android phone like a
Samsung. He never called me on it, and I didn’t know the number to it.”
Others
who have since gone on the record as saying Wortman didn’t have a phone
— statements happily parroted by police — include neighbours Dana
Geddes and Cyndi Starrett, among others.
Doucette said Wortman used to monitor his home, business and warehouse security cameras on the cell phone.
The
issue of whether Wortman had access to a cell phone has persisted since
the massacres. At some points on Sunday April 19, it appears that
someone was calling into the RCMP with information that was designed to
throw off the Mounties.
For
example, there was a call at around 10 a.m. about a dead woman in a car
at the Hidden Hilltop Campground, just north of Masstown. It came just
as the police thought they were closing in on Wortman on the Fisher
family property just to the south of the campground. There has never
been an explanation given for the dead woman in the car saga.
Likewise,
if Wortman had a phone, a call from him about the police car parked at
the Onslow-Belmont firehall might explain the strange behaviour of the
two Mounties who shot at one of their own members and an EMO worker that
morning.
The RCMP has denied
that Wortman had a phone, but its statements must be weighed against the
fact that the force was destroying evidence in the case in the months
afterward until it was finally ordered to stop doing so in the fall of
2020.
Prior to the interviews
with Doucette, two different police sources told Frank Magazine that
they strongly believed that Wortman had a police-issued undercover cell
phone.
Lisa Banfield – ammunition and guns
In
December 2020 Lisa Banfield, her brother James and brother-in-law Brian
Brewster were each charged with illegally supplying ammunition to
Wortman, some of which he used in the 22 murders that were committed
that weekend.
His finances
exhausted by the legal battle, James Banfield eventually pleaded guilty
to a charge. Earlier this year, as her case was set to go to trial,
Banfield’s case was transferred to Restorative Justice, as was
Brewster’s. This meant everything would be hidden away in a closed and
odd process, considering the facts. Restorative justice means the two
sides in a crime come together, talk things over and work out a
resolution, as if it were a dispute that could ever be resolved.
Doucette
said he told the MCC investigators that Banfield had been purchasing
ammunition for Wortman “since around 2010 or 2011. She wasn’t around
Portapique all that much but when she did come up, I saw her bring
ammunition. I don’t know if she had a PAL (Possession and Acquisition
Licence). She got ammunition for everything except the Barrett. I don’t
think it’s easy to get .50 calibres in Canada. I think Gabe brought a
bunch of those in from the States.”
Doucette said he and Wortman used to shoot the guns, especially at the warehouse property with its long, cleared fields.
He
said Wortman liked shooting the Barrett but wasn’t a very good shot at
first. Doucette said that after he coached Wortman “he could take the
top off a beer bottle from 500 yards or so.”
Doucette
said he twice saw Banfield firing a Glock 40 pistol outside the cottage
at 200 Portapique Beach Road. He said she was inexperienced at the time
and that the gun was too much for it.
“She almost lost the gun over her head … and she handed it to me and shook her head,” Doucette said.
The grenades
Lost
in the shuffle over the past two years of stalling and deflections by
the RCMP and the Mass Casualty Commission was the story of Wortman and
the grenades.
Originally, the
RCMP had blacked out mention of grenades in their Informations to Obtain
a Search Warrant. Police sources told me the blacked-out word was
grenades – possibly phosphorous grenades.
Eventually
the word was unredacted in a mass release of information and lost in
the deluge as stories considered sexier overwhelmed the news flow of the
day.
But Wortman and the
grenades are likely vital to the underlying story – Wortman and his
relationships with biker gangs and his possible role as a Confidential
Informant or police agent.
Of
all the secret compartments that Doucette built for Wortman, one was in
his warehouse at 136 Orchard Beach Drive under a work bench. That’s
where he stored grenades.
Doucette
said that Wortman had smuggled two cases of grenades across the border
and that they came in a green U.S. military case with yellow lettering.
They were not phosphorus grenades.
“He showed them to me and asked me exactly how they worked,” Doucette recalled.
“They
were nail grenades. They were about as thick as a pen refill. Double
headed. No ends – 3 ¼ inches long. Each one holds between 75 and 100 of
these nails. All you do is twist these grenades, a quarter of a turn,
and throw it. It will land in a room, bounce and then it will wobble. It
will stand up straight up and down like an egg and when they go there
is nothing in this room that wouldn’t be hit.”
While
anything to do with Wortman’s activities with criminals is constantly
being downplayed by officialdom, the existence of the grenades may well
be the key to what was really going on in Wortman’s world.
The
police hunt for grenades featured largely in search warrants issued to
Trident, Thunder and Thunderstruck investigators in Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario, according to court records and sources.
In
the underworld, shrapnel grenades are an exotic item most suited to the
tastes of a select group outlaw motorcycle clubs, the only likely
buyers. Wortman’s possession of the grenades raises obvious questions:
Was he working with the bikers and supplying them with guns and grenades
or was he working with the police to set those bikers up?
Doucette
said he doesn’t know to whom Wortman was selling grenades, but conceded
that it was at least his understanding that Wortman was selling guns
and other paraphernalia to a number of Nova Scotia motorcycle club
members over the years. These included the Darksiders and two Colchester
County clubs – The Highlanders and the Mountain Men Rednecks. Police
sources added that the Red Devils, a Hells Angels support club, were
also likely Wortman customers.
A
police source says that Wortman was a frequent visitor to the old
Darksiders’ club house near his denturist clinic on Portland Street.
“The
door to the right was for members while the door to the left was for
associates and friends of the club,” the policeman said.
“I’ve been told that Wortman always went to the left.”
Doucette
concurred, saying that Wortman was accepted by some of them as “a
friend of the club” because he provided them with products they needed.
Law
enforcement sources and others interviewed by Frank Magazine say each
of the above assertions by Doucette raises serious and concerning
unanswered questions about Wortman, police operations and the approach
being taken by the Mass Casualty Commission investigating Wortman and
the RCMP response.
Doucette,
himself, is skeptical about the Mass Casualty Commission: “From what I
can see, they are not trying to get to the truth.”
The
following is taken from a series of unsolicited messages from a retired
Mountie to Paul Palango. The writer’s name has been withheld. We will
refer to the writer as a he. We have edited the content to eliminate
identifying comments. We are running this material because we believe
that it addresses many of the known and otherwise unstated issues that
bedevil the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We welcome your comments.
Paul,
we don’t know each other. I just finished your most recent book, 22
Murders: Investigating the Massacres, Cover-up and Obstacles to Justice
in Nova Scotia. Superb and impressive is my assessment and I feel those
adjectives understate this book. I literally had to force myself to put
it down because I needed to sleep before going to work!!
It
saddens me to see an organization to which I belonged for so many years
behaving in such a revolting manner. Thank you for writing this book. I
don’t have a lot of faith in the Mass Casualty Commission. Given the
recent revelations from the notes of Supt. Darren Campbell, Commissioner
Brenda Lucki’s complete non-denial and of course Justin Trudeau’s lies
only serve to reinforce my belief your book is spot on.
RCMP promotion system
Did
some junior and senior NCOs fail, display poor decision-making skills
and so on, on April 18-19, 2020? Yes of course they did. That’s the
problem with the RCMP promotion system. You can promote based on writing
a great cover letter, have a well written competency resume and have a
decent score on the promotional exam. It’s not about operational
aptitude or related knowledge, skills and abilities at all (known as
KSA’s in RCMP vernacular). So you could be a Sergeant from the media
relations section for the past seven years and promoted to being a S/Sgt
on General Duty (GD) Watch Commander in a busy B.C. Lower Mainland
detachment based on your test score, competency resume examples and a
well written cover letter, all reviewed and rated by a commissioned
officer in most instances.
It’s
irrelevant if you have zero recent experience in a busy detachment for
General Duty members. It’s the same for promotions to smaller
detachments like in Nova Scotia. A lot of great members who should be
promoted don’t even try. They don’t want to move all the time. They
don’t want to deal with politics at the detachment, district or
divisional level. They don’t want to invest the time and effort in the
process. It takes a lot of time and effort to participate in the
process.
My point is that means
only those who apply for a job will be in the running. So you only get a
small pool of applicants who are often overwhelmed and under-perform
when called upon in a crisis. That term, “under-perform” is being
diplomatic and excessively kind. It’s the euphemism often seen in the
annual performance reviews of members who are unable, unwilling, some
combination thereof and are simply not suitable for the job - whatever
specific job that might be. It’s why weak general duty members get
hidden on traffic or community policing, school liaison, etc. etc.
Promoting
in the RCMP is very much a personal choice and responsibility to
promote (sell) yourself. There’s no real leadership training such as in
the Canadian Armed Forces. There are no mentoring programs, no
legitimate framework to identify, encourage and motivate promotion of
true leaders with people skills. It’s all about you deciding and
pursuing it. What this means is that some of those making operational
decisions in the first few hours of the tragedy were unqualified,
unsuited, and somewhat incompetent. They were afraid to take bold action
to rescue people and prevent further murders.
The
old saying that “forgiveness is easier to get than permission,” sums up
much of the thought process. You touched upon it in your book. Members
afraid of code of conduct investigations. It’s easier to use the FIDO
(Fuck it, Drive On) principle. It’s safer to just do the bare minimum
and nothing more. I believe many of the general duty first responders
wanted to do more. But they were stopped by indifference, incompetence,
ridiculous assumptions made by incompetent and unqualified junior and
senior NCO’s at the outset of the murders.
Do
you recall when Chris Leather first addressed the media and mentioned
specifically that Wortman didn’t have a Firearms Acquisition Licence?
(Formerly known as FACs.) That was a tell for me he didn’t know what he
was doing, because FAC’s haven’t been issued in over two decades. There
were POLs (Possession Only Licence) and PALs. (Possession and
Acquisition Licence) Now there are only PALs.
Leather
had no clue about the PAL requirements. Legal and lawful, firearms
owners across the country collectively rolled their eyes, including
myself when Leather referred to the non-existent FAC.
Remember that
legal firearms owners in Canada who have a valid PAL are checked on CPIC
every single day for any potential criminality. If anything pops up the
CFO (Chief Firearms Officer) of each province is notified. Your PAL can
be cancelled, suspended and or revoked for almost anything. Nobody else
is checked as much 365 days a year, not even police officers. Not those
who work with the most vulnerable people. Only valid PAL holders. After
Leather’s disastrous performance, Campbell more or less took over.
Saskatchewan farm boys
I
have a relative who spent 35 plus years in the RCMP who said the best
police officers are Saskatchewan farm boys. They had responsibilities
growing up and had to make decisions and deal with those decisions. They
had to always multitask and assess situations and decide on a
reasonable action plan. I don’t disagree with him at all. Some people
are really good at DARE(Drug Abuse Resistance Education) events or being
school liaison, what was often derisively called the “rubber revolver
squad” or the “red gun” section (red guns are hard rubber in the shape
of the 9mm Smith and Wesson pistol that you wear around Depot to break
in your holster and or are used in training scenarios ). Others like to
recruit at job fairs and dress up in red serge for cruise lines and the
Grey Cup. We called them paper cops. All dressed up and well liked.
Paper cops
Paper
cops don’t like shift work, weekends and holiday shift
responsibilities. Those types are generally always seeking jobs with
banker’s hours and often phone in sick. They’re in it for benefits and
pension and the prestige they believe comes with being a member. They
take the easy overtime and get upset if they’re actually called upon to
do real police work in a real situation, things that don’t involve
posing for pics or handing out pamphlets. They’re not, in general,
productive investigators on general duty or occupying specialized
sections in police dog services, ERT, undercover, drug sections or break
and enter squads.
The RCMP has
for years created special jobs and sections for those types. HQ types
who work in the policy development branch and other “paper cop” jobs.
The jobs where you can go to the gym outside regular break time, and
then go for a meal break. Nobody bats an eye and it’s considered
“healthy living.” Whereas if you want to use your meal break for a quick
40-minute workout at the detachment on a night shift you’ll be
ridiculed by most because you’re letting the team down if you’re not
back on time.
Depot
Trust
me, Depot can be difficult and challenging if you’ve got zero common
sense and life experience. I had a few of those in my troop. However,
RCMP training is also designed for people to pass in all subjects.
They’ll help you pass the PARE (Physical Abilities Requirement
Evaluation) by assigning you PT instructors and current cadets in
training to get you to pass that physical test. Failing firearms? Don’t
worry you’ll get tons of extra personal instruction and assistance.
Take
PDT (Police Defensive Tactics). At Depot, recruits get the Readers
Digest version of this training. Everyone pretends that they are the
Karate Kid, but there is no real Karate training! Unarmed physical
takedowns would be the best way to describe it, except it also involves
the baton and OC spray.
If you
can’t cut it, they’ll get you extra personalized instruction. As long as
you can do the bare minimum, there is no problem, The RCMP will get you
through if your driving is not so good, they’ll give you so much more
consideration and help than decades ago.
Cadets
need to only get 60% to pass all written tests. Annual Firearms
Qualification was 200/250 to pass the pistol requirement. Shotguns? A
joke…
You have to be God awful
to wash out in Regina. If you fail to make the grade, they’ll bring you
back and give you another chance. The RCMP can’t keep up with vacancies
right now, so standards have been lowered so much. Drug use, bad
driving, even criminal records don’t always disqualify you these days.
Not a citizen? No problem!!
The chaos inside the RCMP
This
is all part and parcel of the crumbling RCMP that is more concerned
with pronouns, social media and platitudes then being effective.
The
RCMP doesn’t really support success. It basically mandates mediocrity
and facilitates failure which is acceptable if you’re part of a
protected group. Everyone is risk averse.
Risk
management is non-existent. The RCMP has lost sight that risk
management isn’t the same as zero risk. If there is zero risk, then you
don’t need to risk manage. Except risk management is OK if you’re not
the members on patrol with backup many miles away in another zone or
city. The RCMP is now paralyzed by the approach that any failure is
unacceptable so don’t do anything and that can’t be considered or
construed as failure.
As the
SAS (British Special Air Services) say: “Who dares, wins.” There’s
nothing daring about the RCMP. They’re afraid of the Twitter mob, the
CBC, other media and social justice groups.
You’ll
never see a senior commissioned officer be anything approaching bold or
daring -- unless there’s been a focus group telling them to do so. Stay
in your lane is an oft-heard refrain. Accountability is a relative term
depending on your friends in the RCMP. Loyalty isn’t common.
Make-work projects
The RCMP likes to promote its expertise in areas such as organized crime or gang investigations in the B.C. Lower Mainland.
There
are no real gangs, etc in the Lower Mainland. Unlike the Hells Angels
who have a hierarchy and structure, the B.C. gangs are based on loose
affiliations and nothing more. These people will let their family and
friends be killed to make some money. Their loyalty is to money.
The
media continually refers to it as the “ongoing gang conflict.” Why?
Because the media relations officers at the RCMP call it that. It’s just
a money grab for more funding from the municipalities, It’s money
that’s never used to target anybody of significance. There’s no gang war
here. No conflict. It’s idiots with illegal guns pretending to be made
men, acting out GoodFellas and believing they’re bad asses.
Surrey
detachment has its own Surrey Gang Enforcement Team (SGET). I can’t
remember the last time they were involved in any major investigation.
They’re uniform members in SUVs checking bars and laying charges for
breach of curfew on bail or probation conditions or non-criminal driving
offences. They’re not seasoned major crime investigators able to
initiate and handle complex investigations. But they’ve got the cool
jackets that say “Gang enforcement.”
The Nova Scotia connection
What
does all this have to do with what happened in Nova Scotia? It’s all
connected to failing to do the basic job of policing which is
investigating and solving crime and making it uncomfortable for
criminals to operate.
The RCMP produces shitty files. When Crown Attorneys get shitty files, they turn them down. You reap what you sow.
The
massacre is a complete indictment of failures all over the RCMP at all
levels. The RCMP would rather focus on PR and media than public safety.
They’d rather sacrifice people for mistakes than examine why the
mistakes happened and how those can be rectified.
OK,
I think I’ve said enough. I have my views. I don’t know why anyone
wants to be a police officer anywhere these days. They’re not supported
and held to impossible use of force standards and investigative
standards and then sacrificed and vilified.
As
I mentioned in one of my last War and Peace responses, so many good
people the RCMP don’t promote could offer true leadership and vision.
All the majority of Canadians want is reasonable and measured
leadership.
tracking the Gabriel Wortman, mountie CI claim though public online obits
the Hells Angel-Prison Guard angle - Paul droppin’ bad acid - or what ?
I don’t have any insider information —- Zip, None —— about Gabriel Wortman —- and probably you don’t either.
In fact, if you are like me, you feel more than ordinarily trapped behind a computer screen inside your home - thanks Covid !
How then do you get a sense that the media reports you hear have any truth to them ?
What I do first and foremost when reading a news story is to put the
names I come across - particularly names that seem unusually rare - into
a google search combined with the words “survived by” or “visit the grave of”. Searching for online obits.
Basically I am using the skills of genealogy 101 to do a little amateur detecting on a mass killer’s life.
Author and RCMP critic Paul Palango was on the Rick Howe radio
show on June 11th, detailing his theories that the unstable and violent
GW was given a lot of slack by the RCMP because he was a CI (informant)
to the New Brunswick RCMP with regards to the Hells Angels and Mexican
drug cartels etc.
Heavy stuff - is Paul just dropping bad acid and spinning this stuff out of his butt —- or what ?
He mentions an NS born Hells Angel called Peter Alan Griffon. I google that unusual name and “survived by” and get the obit of Tom Kavalak of Springhill NS.
Kavalak is survived by Joanne (Alan) Griffon of near by Portapique and
Audrey McLeod of near by Truro. Audrey’s son is called Sean. Same name
was one of GW victims. I google Sean McLeod and survived by Audrey Truro and a Chronicle Herald obit confirms the Portapique Hell’s Angel and the Hunter Road murdered prison guard are cousins.
About the same time, Paul is making that same point on the Rick Howe Show.
On this particular claim, a minute googling confirmed Paul was indeed ‘telling the truth’.
Now was that so very hard - for me - or any ordinary citizen - to do ?
FAKE NEWSIO ASSHOLIO PALANGO: RCMP IS EXPLODING IN FIT OF ‘COLLECTIVE NARCISSISTIC RAGE’
BY ANDREW DOUGLAS
Among
his many, many other faults, it would appear that we can also lay the
RCMP’s eventual decision to stop taking any questions related to Gabriel
Wortman’s murderous rampages in April of 2020 at the feet of
bestselling author/occasional Frank scribe Paul Palango.
Referring
to the constant influx of media questions in the weeks and months
following the murders, RCMP strategic comms gal Lia Scanlan told MCC
investigators earlier this year that it came to a point when she felt,
“Okay, we need to rein this in.
“We
cannot come in for the next year every day and feed this media beast,”
she said, “Because what we were doing is now — it was just — you had
people like Paul Palango. I mean, that guy would come with, like, 20, 30
questions a day of bullshit. And then you’re asked to validate it all?
It was easier after a point to say, ‘We are — we’re done… we have said
all we can say.
“There was a
decision divisionally to be done with those one-offs. Like, I can’t
remember when or — when you literally had no more new information to
share, and you knew you did everything you could, and we were not having
any more press conferences and all the questions became redundant… or
just literally, like, fake stuff like Paul Palango-type stuff. And he —
because he was being cited as a source, all the media would pick it up,
and then he would generate 40, 50, 60 news agencies and reporters
calling in on one bullshit statement from, like, a Paul Palango.
“So
that decision was made divisionally, and I’m sure I got the support —
like I would have communicated that with headquarters. Like, we would
have — they would have been, ‘Yes, God, we’re surprised that you didn’t
come to this probably sooner, but okay’”.
In
his mind, Palango finds Scanlan’s critiques to be very characteristic
of the inner workings of an organization he’s been documenting since
before she was born.
“It’s a
culture of character assassination, of maligning their critics. Stevie
Cameron, Charlie Gillis, Kurt Petrovich, that’s what they do,” he says,
rhyming off a handful of scribes who have in the past been hesitant to
bend the knee to the Red Serge.
“The RCMP’s hysteria about me appears to be collective narcissistic rage, exploding irrationally over any perceived criticism”.
Regarding
those aforementioned “20, 30 questions a day of bullshit,” Palango says
he’s contacted the Mounties on a total of two occasions. Once in July
of 2020 to discuss Wortman’s fake cop car, and a second time that
October, armed with a series of five questions regarding the
circumstances of Lisa Banfield being interviewed under caution by RCMP
Staff Sgt. Greg Vardy.
Sez
Palango, those questions included “Has the RCMP or the Crown entered
into any kind of deal with Ms. Banfield that would prevent her from
speaking publicly?” and “Did Ms. Banfield have or continue to have a
special relationship of any kind with the RCMP or any other police
force?”
Questions that are still unanswered to this day.
As
for allegations that Palango has treated victims’ families poorly, “I
have never pursued any family member for an interview,” he says.
“Everyone I did talk to over the past two years first approached me”.
He continues: “Their attacks on me would be actionable in court, that is, if the force had any credibility left
“Their
anger speaks to the failings of the RCMP promotion system. Too many who
were given top jobs thought that made them the smartest knife in the
drawer. But, as we’ve seen too many times, when the going got tough,
they couldn’t cut it. Now they are blaming everyone but themselves."
Seven
months after he was named the new commanding officer of the beleaguered
RCMPin Nova Scotia, Assistant Commissioner Dennis Daley has declined to
take the job.
Daley’s appointment was a secret inside the RCMP until Frank Magazinemade inquiries about him last November.
“On
September 22, 2021, Assistant Commander Dennis Daley was named as the
new Commanding Officer of the RCMP in Nova Scotia,” RCMP Corporal Lisa
Croteau wrote to Frank at the time in response to a question submitted
days earlier.
“He will assume
command when he arrives in Nova Scotia, which will be communicated
publicly once the change of command date is confirmed.”
Daley
was designated to replace Assistant Commissioner Leona (Lee) Bergerman
who was in charge of the Nova Scotia Mounties on the weekend in April
2020 when demented denturist Gabriel Wortman killed 22 Nova Scotians in
two rampages over a 13.5-hour period.
In
the intervening seven months, it appears that Daley never stepped foot
into the mess that exists within the RCMP in Nova Scotia.
A Frank tipster informed us that Daley had declined the NS C.O. job for personal reasons.
"Curious if he thought the shit show was too much or something else in his life,” wondered the mole.
When the RCMP was asked about this recently, we received the following missive from RCMP spokesperson Cst. Guillaume Tremblay.
“A/Commr.
Daley’s personal circumstances have changed and he is not able to take
on the Commanding Officer role at this time,” Tremblay said in an April 7
email.
“The process for
selecting a new Commanding Officer in the near term is underway,”
Tremblay stated, adding: “C/Supt. Chris Leather is the acting Commanding
Officer and will remain in the acting role until a new Commanding
Officer is named.”
We’ll get back to this Leather thing in a moment or two, but first things first.
Just
like his appointment, Daley’s demise was not announced publicly by the
RCMP. In the circumstances, with the controversy continually enveloping
the force courtesy of disclosures from the ongoing Mass Casualty
Commissionand a reinvigorated media effort, the RCMP’s legendary secrecy
should be under more scrutiny than ever. Nevertheless, it appears to be
business as usual for the force. It doesn’t want to let the public know
what it is doing and, oddly, governments and other RCMP enablers also
don’t appear all that keen to push their way inside.
From
the outset Daley’s appointment was viewed negatively by many who saw
him as a long-time company man who was being sent in to smooth over the
situation. Daley was coming with baggage.
Last
November, former Mountie Cathy Mansley showed me a human rights she had
filed against him earlier that fall. She had sent it to Daley, with
copies to Commissioner Brenda Lucki and Deputy Commissioner Brian
Brennan, one of Daley’s mentors in the force.
Was Mansley’s complaint the personal reason? Did the RCMP even know about it before Daley’s appointment was made? We don’t know.
When told that Daley had now declined to come to Nova Scotia, Mansley had this reaction: “You’ve just made my day.”
The
Daley debacle brings into focus the likely role being played behind the
curtains by Deputy Commissioner Brian Brennan, who has otherwise
escaped scrutiny as the ultimate officer in charge when the Nova Scotia
massacres took place.
From 2014
to 2019, Brennan was the commanding officer for the RCMP in Nova Scotia.
In that position he oversaw the recruitment and appointment of those
who would rise to positions of power and succeed him, particularly
Bergerman and Chief Superintendent Janis Gray, who ran the Halifax
County operations of the force, until her sudden retirement last year.
In
2019 Brennan moved to Ottawa where he became the Deputy Commissioner in
charge of contract and indigenous policing across Canada. Contract
policing is a subsidized federal service provided to provinces and
municipalities outside Ontarioand Quebec. Although the RCMP is nominally
a federal police force, the majority of RCMP police officers work in
contract policing. For that reason alone, as the commanding officer of
that division, Brennan is considered to be second only to Commissioner
Brenda Lucki in the force’s power rankings.
“Brennan and his people are the ones pulling the strings in Nova Scotia,” one informed source says.
“He
put everyone in place there. He may be gone, but it’s still his show.
He’s the guy who set up the systems and made most of the decisions that
were in place in April 2020. He’s the one they are likely trying to
protect in all this.”
Multiple
sources say that the problem with finding a willing and competent
replacement for Bergerman is a reflection of the dire situation that
exists inside the RCMP. For decades the force’s promotion system has
been criticized for its ineptitude. Rising to the top had little to do
with merit and relied more upon nepotism, gender and identity politics,
personal friendships and secret handshakes. A safe, risk-free and
lucrative career path was more important than honour, duty and a
commitment to public service.
“The
force is sinking,” said one source. “Right now, recruitment is down by
50 per cent. Nobody wants to be a Mountie and those that do, well, a lot
of them aren’t properly qualified, but the force is prepared to hold
its nose and let them in. They have no choice.”
A former RCMP Deputy Commissioner said in an interview that the RCMP model of policing is totally broken.
“What’s going on within the RCMP is similar to what’s happening to the Ontario Provincial Police,” the former executive said.
“Police
recruits want to go to cities. They don’t want to live in rural areas
where they can be moved around at will by their superiors. It’s a
difficult and expensive way of life. Politicians have to wake up and
recognize that the world has changed and that they are going to have to
change with it. The RCMP has a $5.3-billion annual budget --
$5.3-billion! – and it’s not doing it’s job. Yet, it wants more money.
More money is not going to solve the problem. Rural communities can’t
afford them now and the price is already going up 11 per cent due to pay
raises. We need to rethink all this.”
All of which brings us back to Chris Leather.
Leather
was the Criminal Operations Officer at the time of the massacres. It’s
impossible to forget his shaky performances at the first two press
conferences after the massacres. He was the number two Mountie in the
province, responsible for all operations, but yet seemed bewildered and
confused, to put it mildly, about what had happened that weekend.
But now Leather has been left as the man in charge. It seems implausible that such is the case.
One would think that the provincial government would assert some control over the situation, but that’s not likely the case.
Premier
Tim Houston is in a bit of a simple-minded political box. He’s
“pro-police” and doesn’t want to upset the barking dogs in that
community. But Nova Scotia taxpayers are footing the ever-increasing
bill for ever-diminishing services.
The
RCMP in its capacity as a contract police force is subject to the
provincial police act, but the government feels that it can’t exercise
control over the RCMP because it is a federal police force.
Nonsense.
We are paying for this police force and we, the citizens, must have control over it.
What
that means is that as long as the RCMP is policing this province we,
the citizens, must have a say in who its commanding officers are – like
we do with every municipal police force – and not have a nervous Deputy
Commissioner in Ottawa foisting one of his loyal soldiers on us.
An
eerie message from Portapique murder victim Lisa McCully to Lisa
Banfield, the common-law wife of mass murderer Gabriel Wortman, suggests
that there was a darker side to Banfield’s personality than has
previously been described.
The brief message, released in a document dump by the Mass Casualty Commission was dated June 30, 2018.
In
it, McCully was addressing Banfield’s reaction to McCully’s dog having
wandered across Orchard Beach Drive and interrupting a party that was
being held at Wortman’s warehouse/man den at 136 Orchard Beach Drive.
The message read:
“I
trust your weekend was successful and that you are satisfied with your
party accomplishments. In regards to your communication with me, I can
appreciate that your guests might not have liked dogs and I explained
that I would make every effort to keep them in my yard. However, I think
the manner in which you took it upon yourself to aggressively reprimand
me for my dog’s behaviour was unacceptable.
“I feel peace and happiness
in my home and, to this point, have appreciated the camaraderie and
support of my neighbours. Gabriel has indicated that he enjoys the dog’s
company and has created habitual visits for a couple of years by
feeding them treats, unrequested by me.
This is an obviously unresolved
issue between the 2 of you, and I would expect that he will stop
visiting with them or will speak to me about changing the routine, if he
wants it to stop.
“Your sudden aggressive arrival in the dark on my deck
at 11 p.m. was a poor choice, and will not happen, again. This is not
how we interact with each other in Orchard Beach Estates. It is a
community built on kindness and generosity, and I won’t accept an
assault a second time.
“I was happy to accommodate your DJ music until
midnight last night, knowing that you were celebrating a life, something
that I know can be taken quickly.
“I will consider our interactions as
an error in judgment, however. I don’t see that you have any reason to
contact me again or ever come back on my property.
“Thank you for
respecting my standards.-Lisa”
That
there was heat between the two women is a subject that has not been
discussed in any depth by either the RCMP or most of the media.
Each
has been portrayed as relatively harmless individuals who were one kind
of victim or another.
McCully ended up dead, while Banfield has been
incessantly described as a helpless, battered woman suffering under the
psychological and physical abuse of Wortman.
The truth is much more complicated.
From
the time she moved into Portapique Beach in 2016, McCully grew close to
Wortman and had an on-again, off-again affair with him.
For
her part, Banfield was in many ways an occasional visitor to the
neighbourhood. Wortman would regularly leave Dartmouth to go to the
cottage on Wednesdays, usually leaving Banfield in the city, numerous
sources say. Wortman’s neighbour, Cyndi Starratt, has previously
described how she often spent Christmas with Wortman, while Banfield
visited with her family.
When Banfield did go to Portapique Beach, she insisted that no one else be at the cottage, other than her own family members.
Another
side to Banfield was recently reported in Frank Magazine. In 2000 and
2010, she was involved in two Small Claims Court cases where it appears
that she deliberately misled the courts about the facts of her cases.
In
the 2010 case, which she lost, the evidence to support her case
included “a receipt” signed and dated by Fredericton ex-lawyer Tom
Evans, who had died 113 days before the receipt was dated. (Frank 861)
All
of this becomes relevant now that Banfield’s lawyer has cut a deal to
have charges of illegally providing ammunition to Wortman effectively
dropped so that she can testify before the Mass Casualty Commission at
some point. The ammunition charges will be discussed behind closed doors
in a restorative justice setting. Banfield will not have a criminal
record.
In the almost two years
since the massacres, Banfield’s very existence has been little more than
rumour.
The only thing that has persisted are RCMP summaries of her
early statements to the force about what happened that terrible Saturday
night when Wortman began his killing and arson spree.
Banfield’s
version of events, among other things, begins with how she went to bed
naked after a disagreement with Wortman, was dragged out of bed, forced
to dress, tied up with a bathrobe cord, beaten, kicked, fell to the
ground, was dragged, shot at, beaten some more, dragged some more
through the woods, stripped of her boots and puffer jacket and
handcuffed in the backseat of one of Wortman’s four decommissioned RCMP
vehicles.
She described her
escape, about how she crawled through the narrow window of the “Silent
Patrolman” safety shield between the front and back seat of the car. She
said she heard gunshots and screaming and found shelter in an unlocked
truck and then a tree root system.
She
lingered there until sunlight the next morning and ran to the house of
Leon Joudrey seeking his shelter and help. It was freezing cold that
night, but Banfield inexplicably came out of the woods, according to
Joudrey, looking crisp and clean with all her fingers and toes intact.
Since
she was apparently the last person to see Wortman before the massacres,
in the normal world Banfield would be considered an important witness,
someone who should be questioned closely. After all, as we’ve seen from
the court records, she does have a bit of a blemished history when it
comes to telling the truth.
In
spite of its protestations to the contrary, the focus of the Mass
Casualty Commission has been to shade transparency, here and there. From
its inception the inquiry has been urged by politicians at both the
federal and provincial levels to focus on the scourge of domestic
violence, which is undoubtedly a problem in some relationships,
including Wortman’s and Banfield’s.
The other guiding principle of the
inquiry is that it be “trauma-informed,” which has come to mean, it
seems, no tough questions of anyone, the truth be damned.
The
RCMP and the inquiry have signalled that they are married to Banfield’s
story, almost desperately so, in spite of alarm bells going off around
her. They need the world to believe what Banfield says happened as a
way, at the very least, to obscure the force’s own, significant
shortcomings.
The RCMP and MCC
have even conspired to go an extra yard — informed sources say — of
making a film depicting Banfield’s version of events, something that
will help stick the story, with the help of television news broadcasts,
in the memory banks of the otherwise uninformed masses.
The film is expected to be released during Banfield’s appearance as a witness.
Those
who have viewed it describe it as sticking to the already-established
script -- an uncritical and even wilfully gullible depiction of
Banfield’s hoary tale of survival.
One
thing that stands out is her description of escaping from the bathroom
cord tie with which, she says, Wortman bound her. In the movie she says
Wortman bound her hands and tied the other end of the cord to his belt.
She says that Wortman then pulled off her jacket and threw it away.
“I don’t know how she did that if the rope was still tied to Wortman’s belt,” one film reviewer said.
“I may have missed that, but it was never really explained.”
She says Wortman threw her sneakers away in opposite directions.
“Where?” the reviewer said.
“I
don’t think they every found them. As for the jacket, they speculated
that it must have burned up in the fire. It was pretty hot, they said.”
In
the movie Banfield talks about Wortman leading her by the rope down the
road and through the woods to his warehouse on Orchard Beach Drive.
That would have been a considerable distance — several hundred metres —
in the dark and cold.
It
wouldn’t have been an easy thing to do, certainly not as easy as
depicted in the movie. There are those who have attempted to replicate
all this under the same conditions, myself included. It’s almost
impossible to do in a reasonable time, even if you know the terrain.
“It was dark,” said the reviewer.
“It
was scary. There were fires and gunshots. The path wasn’t easy to find.
How did they find it? How did they make their way through the woods to
the warehouse? All things considered, they made incredibly good time.”
Banfield
describes Wortman as firing shots on either side of her head. In
earlier versions of the story, contained in the informations to obtain a
search warrant, Banfield was quoted by police as saying that Wortman
fired into the ground on either side of her.
“As far as I can tell, she described two distinctly different things,” the reviewer said.
“Which one was true?”
Banfield
talks about Wortman trying to put a handcuff on her and locking her in
the back of one of his decommissioned police cars.
As
discussed previously in this space, it appears the handcuffs were not
police handcuffs but bondage handcuffs, with a self-release safety
mechanism. The RCMP doesn’t get into that detail in the film.
Banfield says she squeezed through the safety shield.
“She
says she was beaten and kicked by Wortman,” the reviewer said, “but the
injuries to her ribs and hip are also consistent with squeezing through
a tight space.”
After she
escapes, Banfield places herself not far from the warehouse at 136
Orchard Beach Drive during the critical time period between 10:01 p.m.
and 10:40 p.m. when seven people are murdered. Greg and Jamie Blair were
killed on either side of 10 p.m.
It is not known when her nemesis, Lisa
McCully, their neighbour directly to the south was killed.
Neighbours
Frank and Dawn Gulenchyn were murdered sometime after the Blairs but
before another neighbour, Andrew MacDonald was wounded by Wortman.
Corrie Ellison was murdered at 10:40 p.m. while taking photos of
Wortman’s burning warehouse.
Banfield says she hears shots and screaming but continued to hide, even well after everything dies down.
Did she see or hear anything important?
At another point in the film, Banfield is depicted trying to find a safe place but seems indecisive.
“One of the police officers there points to where she should go next,” the reviewer said.
“It was very clumsy.”
It begs the question: was Banfield really where she said she was?
The
film depicts terrain that is gravel, stone, fallen branches and moss.
According to it, Banfield travelled barefoot through all of it and ended
up with a handful of tiny scratches on the bottoms of her feet.
Banfield’s attempts to describe how she stayed warm in such frigid conditions continues to defy logic.
Recently, I had a number of conversations with two people familiar with Banfield.
“She hates the cold,” said one of the sources.
“She’s the kind of person who complains that they can’t get warm in a warm room.”
In the end, the RCMP movie says much about the transparency of the process.
Although
Banfield was apparently the last person to see Wortman alive before he
went on his crazy rampage, there is no indication whatsoever that the
RCMP considered her a possible suspect or co-conspirator.
There
are no indications that the force took the steps that police would
normally do in a similar situation. There appears to be no record of her
or her clothing being examined for forensic evidence, including
victims’ DNA or gunshot residue.
In
fact, the RCMP appears to have been relatively unconcerned that she
showed up at Leon Joudrey’s house at 6:34 a.m. wearing what Joudrey
described as clean yoga pants, a spandex top and no shoes or a jacket.
In
the history of such infamous matters, the RCMP’s treatment of Banfield
seems incongruous.
The force declared her a victim on day one and, in
spite of anomalies and reasonable suspicions about the veracity of her
story, the RCMP and its enablers continue to prop her up.
For
example, in other MCC documents there is an interview conducted by
Staff Sgt. Greg Vardy. On the surface it might appear to those
unfamiliar with police interviews that Vardy was doing what a police
officer normally does in such situations.
But
police officers knowledgeable about the inner workings of the RCMP in
Nova Scotia say that the Vardy interview was so soft and unfocused that
it seemed he was there to coddle Banfield rather than look for the
truth.
“Vardy’s reputation is
that he is the guy who does entry interviews for the witness protection
program,” one reliable police source put it.
Witness protection?
Over
the almost two years that the world didn’t see Banfield, some people
openly suggested that she must be in witness protection for whatever
reason, but she obviously is not.
She is living in the open but appears to be supported by the RCMP.
What
it all comes down to is that the RCMP, prosecutors, the Commission and
governments appear to be sticking to their original game plan of blaming
everything that went wrong that April weekend on Wortman, the cunning
and crafty psychopath, as if he were the one who didn’t put out a public
alert to stop himself or he was the one that didn’t set up a proper
perimeter or roadblock to contain himself.
We have proven that the Mounties have lied about many aspects of this matter, while destroying and manipulating evidence.
We
have proved they tried to interfere with the process by inserting the
husbands of Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman and Chief
Superintendent Janis Grey into the process.
We
have proven that the police watchdog, the Serious Incident Response
Team, issued two demonstrably false reports about what happened at the
Onslow Belmont firehall and at the Irving Big Stop.
We
could go on, but the point is that those in charge and much of the
media continue to ignore the obvious and jump on the tear-jerking
storyline designed to sway those who get their news at supper time from
the other side of the TV tray.
"The RCMP and the inquiry have signalled that they are married to Banfield’s story, almost desperately so, in spite of alarm bells going off around her. They need the world to believe what Banfield says happened as a way, at the very least, to obscure the force’s own, significant shortcomings.
The RCMP and MCC have even conspired to go an extra yard — informed sources say — of making a film depicting Banfield’s version of events, something that will help stick the story, with the help of television news broadcasts, in the memory banks of the otherwise uninformed masses.
The film is expected to be released during Banfield’s appearance as a witness.Those who have viewed it describe it as sticking to the already-established script -- an uncritical and even wilfully gullible depiction of Banfield’s hoary tale of survival.
One thing that stands out is her description of escaping from the bathroom cord tie with which, she says, Wortman bound her. In the movie she says Wortman bound her hands and tied the other end of the cord to his belt.She says that Wortman then pulled off her jacket and threw it away.
“I don’t know how she did that if the rope was still tied to Wortman’s belt,” one film reviewer said.“I may have missed that, but it was never really explained.”
She says Wortman threw her sneakers away in opposite directions.“Where?” the reviewer said.“I don’t think they every found them.
As for the jacket, they speculated that it must have burned up in the fire. It was pretty hot, they said.”In the movie Banfield talks about Wortman leading her by the rope down the road and through the woods to his warehouse on Orchard Beach Drive. That would have been a considerable distance — several hundred metres — in the dark and cold.It wouldn’t have been an easy thing to do, certainly not as easy as depicted in the movie.
There are those who have attempted to replicate all this under the same conditions, myself included. It’s almost impossible to do in a reasonable time, even if you know the terrain.
“It was dark,” said the reviewer.“It was scary. There were fires and gunshots. The path wasn’t easy to find. How did they find it? How did they make their way through the woods to the warehouse?
All things considered, they made incredibly good time.”Banfield describes Wortman as firing shots on either side of her head. In earlier versions of the story, contained in the informations to obtain a search warrant, Banfield was quoted by police as saying that Wortman fired into the ground on either side of her.
“As far as I can tell, she described two distinctly different things,” the reviewer said.“Which one was true?”
I'm looking for a video I know I listened to of yours. Its about a girl that was trafficked. She was 14 it started at a bus stop. Can you help me please. Someone else wants to watch it.
Here's a question: Was Wortman looking for Lisa Banfield during his killing spree? I don't think so. He enters the Blair house but doesn't enter the McCully house. His other targets in Portapique bordered his property land-wise except for the Gulenchyn's and MacDonald's. Did he search the woods for her? I don't believe so. He wouldn't have the time. He committed all of the crimes in the space of 40 minutes. This includes the murders of Corrie Ellison, Jamie Blair, Greg Blair, Lisa McCully, Jolene Oliver, Aaron Tuck, Emily Tuck, Joy Bond, Peter Bond, John Zahl, Joanne Thomas, Frank Gulenchyn, Dawn Gulenchyn, and the assault of Andrew McDonald. He had left Portipique quickly via the Blueberry Field road.
The fact she expects us to believe her back was hurt and she could hardly walk, to running through thick brush and falling multiple times and all this crawling she was doing does not add up with Leon saying she looked fine and nothing noticeable injury wise. Where are her attach marks and proof of injuries? She couldn’t even figure out where she was this was a complete bs story she is giving
What if....she never got out of the police car? And he brought her the slippers. There is no way you'd walk over all those gravel stones, through the woods, branches, sticks in the dark and your feet would not be a mess!!! She had 2 years to find a fallen tree and put a rock there.
33:01 how can she dress up he put something on her wrist, then she says they went into the kitchen dinner room and then she says bedroom wow what a take she can tell, oh yeah he is so abusive that first she grabbed the phone from him, I don't believe if he's so bad tempered that you would grab something from a person like that, her story is full of holes. Why would he burn everything down and kill all these people but not her his source of anger. She's lying
Is there a Colchester Police? When she says the man with the bullhorn proclaims "This is the Colchester Police" what exactly is she referencing? Also I didn't know you could slide open the partition on the Silent Patrolman: After she escapes the back seat of the Replica, that would place her in the front seat next to the guns that Gabe was piling onto the passenger seat, She could've grabbed a gun but didn't. Instead she got out of the car quietly enough that she was able to run out of the warehouse and into the woods across the street. Interesting.
Almost lost in the volumes of useful and useless information released in recent weeks by the Mass Casualty Commission, lies the still untold story of what actually happened at Portapique Beach
during a critical 12-minute period on the bloody Saturday night of
April 18, 2020.
It is 12 minutes that defines why there continues to be
so much mystery and intrigue surrounding what the RCMP
did and didn’t do that night. In recent weeks the Mass Casualty
Commission has released thousands of pages of documents detailing the
fear, horror and shock of those closely connected to the events which
left 22 people dead over a 13.5-hour period.
The collective media,
largely absent from the battlefield over the past 22 months, has been
revived from the dead, lapping up every emotional twist and turn that
has been spoon fed to them by the commission. Stories that were told
long ago were reborn as “scoops.”
Deranged denturist Gabriel Wortman
was, once again, every journalist’s favorite pinata, as if the public
hadn’t figured out by now that he was a mad man with a troubled
past. But in the flood of blood, gore and emotion, it's easy to miss
important nuggets hidden here and there, many of which require time,
patience and perhaps a few citizen investigators to see.
All of which
brings us to those inexplicable and incongruous 12 minutes, which began
at about 10:28 p.m. on April 18, 2020.
A few minutes earlier, Andrew MacDonald had noticed a fire to the south of his cottage at the intersection of Portapique Beach Road and Orchard Beach Drive. He and his wife, Kate,
got into a vehicle and went to track down the source of the fire,
driving down Orchard Beach Drive.
Around a bend in the road about 100
metres way, they came across what appeared to be a marked RCMP vehicle
sitting in the driveway of Frankand Dawn Gulenchyn’s
house. There was a fire in the kitchen area. MacDonald was on the phone
with 911. His call began at 10:26. He told the operator that there was a
fire and that an RCMP cruiser was already there.
MacDonald had no way
of knowing that the Gulenchyns were both lying dead in their burning house.
What MacDonald also didn’t know was that the 911 operators had
already fielded two dramatic calls from the next two houses farther down
the road.
The Blair house was 200 or so metres away and the McCully house was just beyond that. At 10:01 p.m. Jamie Blair had called to say her husband Greg had been murdered by their neighbour Wortman, who was dressed as a Mountieand
driving a marked police car. As she spoke, Wortman came back into their
house and killed her.
At 10:16 p.m., Blair’s 12-year-old son called 911
from the basement of next-door neighbour Lisa McCully’s
house. Dealing with a feckless 911 operator (listen to the tape, if you
wish) the Blair child explained how his parents had been murdered and
that Lisa McCully had gone outside and not come back.
Meanwhile, the boy
said, his 10-year-old brother and McCully's 10-year-old son had
ventured outside and could not be located. As I had reported earlier,
they believed Wortman was circling around the neighbourhood in the
car.
Back to MacDonald in his vehicle. He turned around and was
approaching the Gulenchyn’s house when Wortman pulled out of the
driveway and came up alongside his vehicle. Wortman opened fire, grazing
MacDonald, who took off north on Orchard Beach Drive. The time was just
short of 10:28 p.m
The 12 minutes
Near the intersection of Portapique Beach Road, MacDonald came across RCMP Constable Stuart Beselt
who had just arrived in the neighbourhood and was awaiting backup
before venturing in. It was 10:28:24 p.m.
While all this was
transpiring, Corrie Ellison made a fateful decision. He and his brother, Clinton, had been visiting their father Richard at his place, several hundred metres south of Wortman’s warehouse property at 136 Orchard Beach Drive,
directly across the road from McCully’s house. Corrie walked up the
gravel road in the dark to investigate the source of the fire he could
see blazing to the north.
At 10:39.26 p.m., Ellison took a photo of
Wortman’s burning warehouse. He took another photo 13 seconds later.
Seventeen seconds after that, at 10:39.50 p.m., Beselt reports hearing a
flurry of gun shots. Constable Aaron Patton
hears two more, 19 seconds later.
Three seconds after Patton reports
hearing shots, Corrie Ellison took a final photo which captures nothing
but darkness. It’s 10:40:12 p.m.
That’s the 12 minutes. From roughly
10:28 p.m. to 10:40 p.m.
Witnesses must be cross-examined
In the shifting timelines and explanations from the RCMP over the past
23 months, this hard and fast timeline appears to contradict or
challenge both the RCMP’s “official” timeline and sequence of
events.
The first and most obvious question involves the actions of the
first officers to arrive on the scene.
Beselt and Patton said that
after they met Andrew MacDonald at the top of Portapique Beach Road,
they headed down Portapique Beach Road toward Wortman’s Cottage at
Number 200.
MacDonald had been shot at on Orchard Beach Drive which
runs parallel to Portapique Beach Road after the two roads intersect
about 300 metres south of Highway 2.
Why did they not go down Orchard
Beach Drive? That’s where, we’re told, the first 911 calls originated
from both Jamie Blair and her son. That’s where MacDonald was shot.
That’s where Wortman had escaped to the south.
What made the police
officers head out on foot in the dark toward Wortman’s cottage, which
was 600 metres south of the intersection with Orchard Beach Drive. They
seemed to hone in on Wortman even though the RCMP denied knowing at the
outset that Wortman was the perpetrator.
Once they were there, they said
they went to investigate another fire to the south. That appears to
have been a fire at 293 Portapique Beach Road, the house where John Zahl and Elizabeth (Jo) Thomas
were murdered and immolated.
Then the Mounties said they found a path,
which is just north of the Zahl house and followed it through the woods
to Wortman’s warehouse fire. I’ve been on that path a number of times on
foot and in a car. It’s a long and windy road, perhaps 400 to 500
metres.
By 10:49 p.m. the Mounties not only made their way up the path
to the burning warehouse but onto Orchard Beach Drive where they find
the bodies of Corrie Ellison and Lisa McCully.
Corrie Ellison likely
died at 10:40 or so. Lisa McCully was killed before the children called
911 at 10:16 p.m.
Therein lies a huge problem with this version of
events. While Beselt et al likely did what they said they did, it seems
incomprehensible that the Mounties ignored the 911 calls from Jamie
Blair and her child afterward and went down Portapique Beach Road.
Experience and logic would suggest that the Mounties had every reason
to go down Orchard Beach Drive first or, at the very least, at the same
time as the foray down the parallel road.
If that were the case, who
would those Mounties have been. Over the past 23 months the RCMP has
been exceptionally tight-lipped about who were the first to arrive on
the scene.
Until now, the force has not discussed who did what. In
previous stories over the past 23 months, I’ve identified other Mounties
as having been on scene early, including Corporal Natasha Jamieson and Constable Jordan Carroll, the son of Staff-Sgt. Al Carroll
who was one of the original incident commanders barking orders.
I had
previously identified Jamieson as an original officer in charge who
appeared to have had a breakdown at the scene and had hidden in the
woods at one point.
Now the RCMP says Jamieson and Jordan Carroll got
to Portapique later than I had reported. This might be true but there is
room for doubt about that timeline.
We know that the RCMP has lied
about many things in this matter and has destroyed or manipulated
evidence. In the fall of 2020 Frank published a four-page RCMP
memorandum dated October 15, 2020: MD-218
– Moratorium on the Destruction of information involving Gabriel
Wortman pertaining to the investigation of the mass shooting in Nova
Scotia …”
What was being destroyed and manipulated? Could it have to do with who was first at the scene and what they did?
Enter Clinton Ellison,
the brother of Corrie Ellison. When he couldn’t reach his brother on
his cell phone , he headed up Orchard Beach Road to look for him. He
found him dead and then saw someone with flashlights coming after him.
He thought it was Wortman, but it was likely the police.
It appears that
he found the body just before the Mounties did. Ellison retreated down
the road several hundred metres and then hid in the bush. He called his
father, Richard, who called 911 at 10:59 p.m.
The MCC provided forensic
ballistics results for the bullets that killed Ellison and McCully, but
they were inconclusive about the weapon used to fire the 40-millimetre
slugs.
The forensic report on Ellison said that he appeared to have been
leaning in the window of a car when he was shot based upon the downward
trajectory of the bullet through his body.
That’s certainly plausible
but there is considerable room for reasonable doubt especially since we
know the RCMP was destroying evidence and credible sources describe the
alteration of evidence by the RCMP.
That’s why unfettered
cross-examination of witnesses at the inquiry is vital. Having questions
submitted in advance to the MCC and posed by MCC counsel, eliminating
the possibility of follow-ups doesn't work. If the commission is sincere
in its quest to uncover the truth, witnesses cannot be allowed to spew
out whatever they want, unchallenged.
Blueberry field road
If
Wortman shot at MacDonald at 10:28 p.m., what was he doing for the next
12 minutes before he shot and killed Ellison at 10:40 p.m., perhaps 300
metres to the south?
The RCMP has suggested that he used the path
through his property to drive around the neighbourhood, but that path
only connected his warehouse to the southern end of Portapique Beach
Road. Wortman could not use that path to get to Cobequid Court at the southern end of Orchard Beach Drive where he killed Aaron Tuck, Jolene Oliver and Emily Tuck and then their next-door neighbours Peter and Joy Bond.
The only way to get to their houses was along Orchard Beach Drive.
That’s where the 12-minutes creates another problem for the official
storyline.
The RCMP has indicated that Wortman killed the Tucks and
Bonds last in the Portapique portion of his two-day spree and that he
escaped the area using a path beside a blueberry field, which can be
accessed from the east end of Cobequid Court.
The RCMP said he made his
escape at 10:45 p.m. connecting to Brown Loop and then Highway 2. They say Wortman was caught on camera at the WilsonsGas Stop in Great Village
at 10:51 p.m.
The problem there is the time stamp was almost one hour
off and may not be reliable. If Wortman killed Corrie Ellison at 10:40
p.m., it would have taken him at least two minutes to get to Cobequid
Court. He would then have to murder three people, get back into this
car, drive over to the Bond house, kill them, drive over to the
blueberry field and drive the rutty path for three or four minutes to
get to Brown Loop.
On that day, Brown Loop was muddy, rocky and
difficult to pass through in a car like the one he was driving. The
RCMP suggests he did this all at warp speed and got out by 10:45
p.m. Not likely.
In the MCC report mention is made of the Zimmerman
family having seen a vehicle pass through the blueberry field between
10:33 and 10:45 p.m. I’ve seen their house from the vantage point of the
blueberry field. It would be all but impossible to make out anything,
and their timeline is problematic considering all that we have just
discussed.
Then there is the evidence of Dean Dillman,
who said he was at Brown Loop around 10:45 to 10:58 and that he didn’t
see anyone come up from the blueberry path. The suggestion is that
Wortman must have gone by earlier.
What Dillman actually said was that
he was guessing at the time. He said his mother, Autumn Doucette,
knew the actual time he was at the mouth of the blueberry field path. I
had talked to Doucette more than a year ago and had seen her phone
records, which she had shared with the MCC.
In a recent interview, she
described once again what had actually transpired: Dean had gone to
Portapique Beach to see what was going on that night. He went down Brown
Loop and had talked to her at 10:38 p.m. about him being there and that
he had seen no one come up the field then or before he left at 10:58
p.m.
What does this all mean? The RCMP has a credibility problem. It and
the MCC have been playing hide-the-pea for almost two years. Nothing is
ever straightforward.
Of all the 22 murders, the strangest one is that
of Corrie Ellison. It doesn’t fit the pattern or time frame.
It took
almost a year and a half after the event for the RCMP to state publicly
that officers first found Ellison’s body at 10:49 p.m. But they didn’t
do anything about it.
At 1:50 a.m. officers at the scene stumbled onto
Ellison’s body again and noted that he had been shot in the head. “It’s a
40-calibre Smith and Wesson.” They
left the body there.
Shortly after 3 a.m. other Mounties found the body
and marked its location with GPS. They left it there under a tarp until
well into the next day.
If Wortman killed Ellison at 10:40 p.m., then
how did he manage to drive a couple of kilometres through the
neighhbourhood, kill five more people in two different locations and
drive a couple of more kilometres up a muddy path and escape in just
five minutes?
It just doesn’t make sense. If Wortman shot at MacDonald
at 10:28, went down the road and killed the Tucks and the Bonds he had
plenty of time to get away, but not through the blueberry patch path. He
likely drove right up the road past the Mountie positions. That makes
sense.
But then, that brings us back to last summer, when Frank first
reported Clinton Ellison's disturbing question: "Did the RCMP kill my
brother?"
Frank Magazine February 7 2022 two part article by Paul Palango
February 11, 2022
FRANK MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 7, 2022
ONE OF TWO ARTICLES
DID GABRIEL WORTMAN KILL HIMSELF?
by Paul Palango
Gabriel
Wortman likely committed suicide with the service revolver he stole
from RCMP Constable Heidi Stevenson after he murdered her on April 19,
2020.
Two independent sources,
both with knowledge of the inner workings of the Mass Casualty
Commission, say there’s a good chance the possibility of the denturist’s
suicide will be raised in public foundational documents being compiled
by the commission.
“Wortman
potentially shoots himself and then they shoot him,” White Knight told
Frank Magazine, describing how two as-yet-unidentified Mounties unloaded
on Wortman.
A second,
independent source confirmed things appear to be moving in that
direction in the MCC foundational document sewing circle.
Video tape obtained by Frank Magazine last June indicates that about 20 rounds were fired at or into Wortman.
“When they finally shot him at the Irving Big Stop, he was basically a piece of Swiss Cheese,” White Knight says.
“He
was shot in the neck and head. They pull him out of the car, lay his
body face down on the pavement and then cuff him with zip ties behind
his back.” (Or, as Frank reported last year, shoelaces-ed.)
Suicide or not, hundreds of questions remain unanswered.
How did the RCMP know it was Wortman in the car that day? Why did they not make an attempt to arrest him?
Police
watchdog Felix Cacchione, director of the Serious Incident Response
Team, issued a report in which he described a final confrontation with
Wortman that did not match with video evidence later obtained by Frank
Magazine.
Cacchione said
Constable Craig Hubley identified Wortman and called upon another
Mountie for assistance. A scenario that looked like that actually
occurred minutes earlier at a Petro Canada station in Elmsdale.
Cacchione has defended his version of events. He admitted that the
Elmsdale incident had taken place but that the officers there did not
identify Wortman. By the way, the shy and retiring Hubley, who has never
spoken in public about any of this, is the beloved stepson on Nova
Scotia Supreme Court Chief Justice Deborah K. Smith.
The problem with any findings by the Mass Casualty Commission should be obvious.
Twenty-two
months down the road, there is possible evidence of gross, if not
criminal, negligence by the RCMP, yet there has been no investigation.
The
RCMP has been not only allowed to investigate itself, it has a seat at
the Commission with a say in interpreting the evidence, as if this is
all so normal.
Twenty-two months
down the road, the public has been shown no ballistics evidence for any
of the shootings. There have been no coroner’s inquests. Everything is a
secret that needs to be pried out of the grasp of the Mounties and the
government.
If Wortman indeed
committed suicide 22 months ago, how could anyone inside the RCMP or
government not think that would be helpful for the public to know at the
time?
Even then, it took a whistleblower to leak the news.
If something as simple and clear cut as that is being hidden, what else is there?
Second of two articles. Frank Magazine February 7, 2022
Policed by the RCMP? Get yourself a gun.
by Paul Palango
A
credible source who has viewed transcripts of RCMP communications
during Gabriel Wortman’s murderous rampage in April 2020 has a single
recommendation for the public.
“It’s
absolutely clear that the police who were supposed to be there to
protect (the public) were incompetent,” says the source, whom we’ve
nicknamed White Knight.
“If
there was a message in all this, it would be this: If you are in a
jurisdiction being policed by the RCMP, you should get guns for your own
safety.”
White Knight, like
previous Frank Magazine sources, including True Blue and Red Horse,
stepped forward recently out of a sense of frustration about the lack of
transparency displayed by the federal and provincial governments, the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Mass Casualty Commission
empanelled to investigate the massacres of April 18 and 19, 2020.
“From what I’ve seen, there is no way to sugar coat this for the RCMP,” White Knight said.
“In the best-case scenario this is a horrific case of incompetence after incompetence after incompetence.”
White
Knight, who has participated in the Mass Casualty Commission’s secret
sessions for months, says the entire RCMP response to the Portapique
scene that Saturday night smacked of the poor quality of training, and
even poorer supervision that happens inside the force.
“The
Mounties were acting like they were dealing with 29 people or
something,” said our new source who, because of the confidentiality
agreement the MCC forces participants to sign, is risking their
livelihood to speak to us.
“You would have thought under the circumstances that they would have been running all over the community trying to save people.”
Audio
tapes obtained by Frank Magazine over the past 14 months confirm
eyewitness reports that instead of charging into the Portapique
neighbourhood, the Mounties used the majority of their manpower and
resources erecting roadblocks in locations kilometres away. But the
roadblocks failed to catch Wortman who, it appears, drove right past the
Mounties and escaped that night, took a rest in Debert, and then went
on killing nine more people the next day.
“The whole thing is that they start setting up roadblocks and stuff, but it made no sense,” White Knight said.
“It’s
a rural community. There are backroads and driveable paths and water.
Why take half of your manpower and put them in intersections far from
the scene and let the gunman get away?”
Going
through the communication records, White Knight detected an
institutional cowardice in the RCMP. This is clearly the result of
numerous crippling factors. It has been cowed by multiple high-profile
screw ups across the country over the years. It is bedevilled by poor
recruitment, weak retention of staff and a much-criticized promotion
system that propels the least field-tested of managers to the top. After
the force was fined $550,000 for failing its members in Moncton, three
of whom were murdered in June 2014, dangerous situations now elicit a
fear of more fines or prosecution for the force.
All
this trickles down to members who avoid danger. They call it FIDO –
Fuck It, Drive On. The end result is that, with notable exceptions in
the field, the RCMP is all uniform and no heart. You could argue that’s
been ingrained in the force’s genetic makeup for 40 years.
In
previous reporting I have noted that multiple law enforcement sources
have described how one of the first RCMP members who arrived on the
scene hid in the bushes and threw away her gun. The same corporal
apparently ordered members not to go down the road at the risk of losing
their jobs.
“No one was shooting at them,” White Knight said of the events that took place on that Saturday night at Portapique Beach.
“The
Mounties seemed terrified the entire time. That will come out in the
public version of the foundational papers. All they were really doing
was taking precautions so that they wouldn’t be exposed to any personal
risk. When it all blew over and calmed down, then they were going to
march in.”
After that weekend,
70 Mounties took months, some longer, off work on medical leave costing
taxpayers several million dollars for replacements to be brought in from
across the country. Many others at all ranks right up to Assistant
Commissioner Leona (Lee) Bergerman and Chief Superintendent Janis Gray
have retired and slipped away from being held accountable.
The
fear factor in the RCMP response was evident throughout Wortman’s
rampage, until it came to an end at the Irving Big Stop in Enfield on
the morning of April 19.
White
Knight added, somewhat sarcastically, “The RCMP will say that ‘we did
this all by the book, the way we’re supposed to do things,’ as if being
super cautious and terrified is the way you are supposed to do it.”
White
Knight believes the communications should be released, not just the
transcripts, so that the public can fully understand the issues at hand.
“What
I got from all this is this message: If you ever have to call the RCMP
for help, they will hide several hundred metres from your house until
they are sure it’s safe to go in.”
Mass Casualty Commission reluctant to examine criminal subculture
February 1, 2022
FRANK
MAGAZINE FEB. 1, 2022
Insider: Mass Casualty Commission,
families 'reluctant' to examine Portapique criminal subculture
--
by Paul Palango
On the evening of April 18, 2020,
police, RCMP dispatchers and 911 callers were all openly speculating
that the shooting and arson rampage taking place at Portapique Beach was
part of a vendetta over the murders of two former members of the Hells
Angels two decades earlier.
The information is contained in so-called
foundational documents being prepared by the federal-provincial Mass
Casualty Commission empanelled to investigate the murder of 22 Nova
Scotians by Dartmouth denturist Gabriel Wortman.
These new details are
being provided to Frank Magazine from inside the MCC from a source we
have named White Knight.
The murdered bikers were Randy and
Kirk Mersereau.
“Within minutes of this going down,
everyone is talking about the Mersereau trial… in a bizarre way from
cops, 911 operators, locals calling in ….
The common theme was that this
is probably connected to the Mersereau trial,” White Knight said in an
interview. “There is interesting chatter between the 911 dispatchers who
were transfixed by the Mersereau angle. They were saying that what was
going down in Portapique was because of Mersereau. Everyone seemed to be
in the know. It was so strange.”
Lost in the shuffle was
the fact that 911 call takers were told by three different victims that
the shooter was Wortman, dressed as a Mountie and driving what appeared
to be a fully decked out RCMP cruiser.
The calls from Jamie Blair, her
son, and wounded victim Andrew MacDonald came at 10:01 p.m., 10:16 p.m.
and 10:26 p.m, respectively.
Until 911 tapes were obtained
by Frank Magazine in June 2021 from a source we dubbed True Blue, the
RCMP had insisted that it did not know that Wortman was the shooter or
dressed as a Mountie until the next morning. That’s when Wortman’s
common-law wife allegedly came out of hiding in the woods at Portapique
and told them about Wortman’s replica police car.
White
Knight said the revelations shine a light on what he described as the
largely hidden but substantial criminal subculture in the Portapique
area. “I don’t know if there’s 100,000 documents but
there’s a lot in the system,” he said. “There are so many people in
Portapique who were witnesses in trials (and) others who were clearly
members of organized crime or convicted members of organized crime.”
White Knight also said that there are numerous links to the
federal penitentiary at Springhill, west of Portapique. One of
Wortman’s victims on April 19 was corrections officer Sean McLeod who
worked at Springhill as a keeper. His girlfriend, Alanna Jenkins, was a
keeper at the all-women’s Nova Institution in Truro. She too was
murdered at their home on Hunter Road in Wentworth along with good
Samaritan Tom Bagley. ---
Randy Mersereau was a Hells
Angels leader in Nova Scotia before he left the gang and branched out on
his own. He had put out contracts to kill three powerful Hells Angels
leaders – David “Wolf” Carroll, Walter “Nurget” Stadnick and Mike
McCrea.
In a first attempt to kill Mersereau, on September
23, 1999, the Hells Angels bombed a car dealership he owned in Truro.
Mersereau and six others were injured in the blast.
RCMP
informant Dany Kane was also assigned to kill Mersereau but he and his
murderous partner, Aimé Simard, were stopped by police in Québec and
prevented from carrying out the murder. In total Kane killed 11 people,
including a young boy, while working undercover for the Mounties.
On Halloween Night 1999, Jeffrey Lynds and others kidnapped
Randy Mersereau and murdered him with a machine gun. Mersereau’s body
was buried by Lynds’s nephew Curtis Lynds in the woods of Colchester
County. The skeleton was not discovered until December 2010.
Meanwhile, Randy’s brother, Kirk Mersereau, took control of
their criminal enterprise. On September 10, 2000, Kirk Mersereau and
his wife, Nancy Christensen, were murdered at their farmhouse in Centre
Burlington on the south side of the Minas Basin near Windsor, NS.
One of Kirk Mersereau’s killers, John Lawrence of
Portapique, also murdered an innocent Portapique man, Charlie Maddison,
who had given Lawrence a ride.
Others involved in the
murders included Dean Whynott and Les Greenwood.
The
connections to the Hells Angels and the Mersereau murders ran even
deeper in the Portapique Beach community.
The Lynds family
and murder victims Greg and Jamie Blair were related by marriage. The
RCMP seemed to have this on their radar, although there is no suggestion
that the Blairs were involved in criminal activity. A
further connection on the other side of the story is with the Griffon
family, which had ties to Randy Mersereau, who was a close family
friend.
Peter Griffon was convicted in 2017 of drug
trafficking and weapons offences in Alberta. The RCMP in that province
says Griffon was working with the Mexican drug cartel La Familia and the
El Salvadoran street gang Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, as it’s known.
After being paroled from prison, Griffon moved back to
Portapique where he became Gabriel Wortman’s helper, among other things,
around his property. In that capacity he helped apply the RCMP decals
to a decommissioned police cruiser that Wortman had bought from the
government.
On the evening of April 18, 2020, amid two
blazing nearby fires and in all the chaos, Griffon and his family were
evacuated by the RCMP from their home at the foot of Portapique Beach
Road one and a half hours before the police rescued four young children
hiding in the basement of Lisa McCully’s home at 135 Orchard Beach
Drive.
Griffon was never charged with a criminal offense,
but sources say that he violated parole and is currently back in prison.
There are no details available at press time about the reasons for his
reimprisonment.
Another victim who was involved with
motorcycle gangs was Aaron Tuck, who had been associated with the Hells
Angels rivals, the Outlaws MC.
Tuck was shot and killed in
his home on Cobequid Court along with his wife, Jolene Oliver and their
17-year-old daughter Emily Tuck.
While the RCMP appeared to
be focused on outlaw bikers and a possible hit team operating that
night in Portapique Beach, White Knight said that despite the
preponderance of evidence about criminal activities in the Portapique
area, the Mass Casualty Commission is reluctant to either scrutinize or
highlight what has been going on.
For example, Wortman had a
significant personal and financial relationship with the late former
Fredericton lawyer Tom Evans, as first reported by Frank Magazine in
September of 2020.
“As far as I can tell,” White Knight
said, “Evans’ clients were mainly organized crime – the Mob.”
Evans even represented Columbian drug cartel members who
were caught in New Brunswick.
All of this raises the issue
of drug smuggling, one of Nova Scotia’s long-time favorite illegal water
sports.
“In terms of international drug trafficking you
have one large port, Parrsboro, where there are lots of fishermen and
pleasure craft in the summer,”
White Knight said. “They are doing wet
drops, dropping bundles off just outside the harbour and boats go out
and pick it all up. Much of it goes straight from Parrsboro into the
Springhill institution….
Wortman was clearly focused on Springhill.”
All of this, of course, raises the issue of whether someone
inside Wortman’s circle, perhaps Wortman himself, was a confidential
informant.
“The police are saying that no one is a
(confidential informant),” White Knight said.
“But the RCMP
undercover manual says the police can only admit to the existence of a
C.I. to a judge sitting as a court,” I replied.
“That’s the
thing,” White Knight said. “The government lawyers won’t even comment.
It’s hard to tell what’s really going on here. Wortman was a man who had
a history of violence. He fired a gun in his own house in Dartmouth. He
was involved in criminal activities all his life and all he had on his
record was a speeding ticket. Wortman should have been on the radar much
sooner.”
As intriguing as the organized crime angle might
well be, there appears to be little appetite on behalf of the commission
or the families of the victims to bring much of it into the daylight.
The commission has made it clear to the public that there is not going
to be much time spent on public testimony. As the commission put it in a
recent press release, just about everything will be written down
“limiting the need for lengthy proceedings and reducing the amount of
verbal testimony required to do our work.”
The commission
says that key participants are being shown the available information and
are being allowed to make comments.
The select group of
key participants are governments, the RCMP and the family members of the
deceased, each one of whom are being funded to the tune of $100,000 for
their participation, according to White Knight. Even Wortman’s former
common-law wife, Lisa Banfield, gets that money, even though there are
serious questions about the credibility of her version of events. Almost
all of those participants, with a few exceptions, have an interest in
sanitizing what is to be discussed.
No one wants their dead
loved ones linked to criminal behaviour, even if such revelations might
better help the world understand what happened.
White
Knight confirmed that the issue of “The Lifestyle” – swingers – has come
up as being an issue in the community. But nobody wants that discussed.
“There’s certainly that angle,” White Knight said, adding:
“And some of the victims are clearly ex-girlfriends he used to be able
to sleep with, who would no longer sleep with him.”
He
cited the case of Gina Goulet, the last person Wortman murdered on his
spree, shortly after he had killed RCMP Constable Heidi Stevenson and
another Good Samaritan, Joey Webber, at a traffic circle in
Shubenacadie.
“Gina Goulet strikes me as an innocent
victim. She was just an ex-girlfriend,” White Knight said. “He had been
to her house, and she had been to his cottage visiting him at
Portapique. She was someone who didn’t own a gun and he knew that.”
All this has left White Knight perplexed, the reason he has
stepped forward.
“The Commission has not been running
smoothly, let’s make that clear,” he said, echoing the observations of
other sources.
The CBC’s Elizabeth McMillan recently
reported that it has already spent $13-million dollars conducting the
public hearing largely in private.
Even though the
Commission has doubled down recently promising to begin its public phase
on February 22, White Knight is not convinced that is going to happen.
“We get the feeling that it’s going to be cancelled again
for some reason.”
Portapique Inquiry delays point to predetermined outcome
January 16, 2022
Hello. Our power and phones got knocked out during the storm, but we’re back.
This snowy weekend’s feature is two stories for the price of one!
Please tune in tonight to the Nighttime Podcast with Jordan Bonaparte.
And….. if you haven’t subscribed to Frank Magazine, please do so.
We’re working for you. We don’t ask for much, if anything at all.
A little help would be appreciated by Andrew and his tiny gang.
No one else in the media seems to be all that interested in this absolutely important story.
Thank you, again
Paulp
FRANK MAGAZINE THURSDAY JANUARY 13, 2022
Portapique inquiry delays point to predetermined outcome
by Paul Palango
The
quest for accountability in the murders of 22 residents of Nova
Scotiahas proven to be a road littered with delays, distractions and
deflections.
The latest twist
came on January 11 when nearing its promised public hearings set to
begin on January 25, the Mass Casualty Commission investigating the
massacres announced in a mealy-mouthed press release that it was putting
off those hearings until February 22, a date which was not mentioned in
the press release but could be found elsewhere on the commisison’s
website. No reasons were cited for the postponement.
This
is the second major delay in hearings which were originally slated to
begin last October but the three-person commission said it needed more
time to review key the large volumes of materials – much of it contained
in the ongoing series of Frank Magazine articles.
The
new delay should come as no surprise after this magazine published
confidential internal documents provided to it by Red Horse, a
disgruntled insider who believes the Commission is not acting on the
up-and-up.
Reading between the
lines of the press release and the Commission’s website, any astute
observer could detect any number of disturbing revelations.
“An
important part of the process for creating Foundational Documents has
been consulting and meeting with Participants to identify gaps or errors
to ensure the Foundational Documents are as accurate as possible before
they are shared publicly,” the release states. “As we anticipated,
additional information and evidence has been identified that our
investigations and legal teams are now reviewing.”
Then
there is this: “Public proceedings will include hearings, expert
roundtables, the sharing of Foundational Documents and Commissioned
Reports.”
Since there is no
intent for anyone to be “adversarial,” the plan is for hearings that are
devoid of tension or truth seeking. It’s all going to be orchestrated
by the documents and the pre-planned chatter. No one is supposed to get
emotional about 22 people being murdered, the life and times of a mad
man with apparent close connections to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
and that police force’s inability or unwillingness to get in front of
him and stop him when they had more than a half a day to do so. Oh yeah,
and the force didn’t put out a public alert when it should have.
The
commission is clearly attempting to turn a much-needed investigation
into an unprecedented, murderous rampage into a group discussion on the
greater and lesser merits of lachrymal avoidance.
Call it the world’s most boring coverup.
Finally,
the commission makes a point of emphasizing that it will be redacting
information before it even meets with the public, as if this is the
honourable thing to do.
It
writes: “The Mass Casualty Commission is mandated to use a restorative
approach, meaning the work of the Commission must be conducted with a
principle of minimizing further harm while working to deliver answers to
the public. To do this, the Commission has taken various steps,
including thoroughly reviewing and redacting documents to protect the
privacy and dignity of witnesses and those most affected by the mass
casualty, as needed. For example, this includes removing personal
information like phone numbers and blurring images of children. The
Commission is also working closely with Participants, including those
most affected, families, first responders and service providers, to
ensure they are prepared and well-informed before information related to
them is made public.”
Even
though the use of restorative justice principles and tactics is not
appropriate or suitable for a murder investigation, the commission and
its government enablers are determined to do that, no matter how bad it
might look.
Once again, the
commission is desperately trying to keep the public focus on the
families of the victims, as if they are the only ones who have an
interest in these matters.
Not so.
We
the public have suffered emotionally and financially. We are paying the
freight either with our federal or provincial tax contributions. The
better angels among us want the truth.
Finally, there is this last and very revealing point – the Mass Casualty Commission’s ever-flexible timeline.
The
three Commissioners — former Chief Justice Michael MacDonald, former
police chief and RCMP advisor Leanne Fitch and public inquiry specialist
Kim Stanton — were appointed in the summer and fall of 2020.
From
the outset they laid out a schedule for hearings, preliminary and final
reports. They stated that their method would be to produce these
foundational documents which they’ve been working on for well over a
year. They’ve done this by conducting interviews behind close doors with
“key participants.” There was no cross-examination. No trauma. And
everyone had to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement.
Those
documents, with evidence gathered in private, are designed to be the
skeleton, and most of the meat and muscle of the inquiry.
What’s left for the public part?
One would think that with more than four months of delays, the schedule would be thrown off.
But not so.
Accordiing to the MCC’s website, a preliminary report will be issued by June 1 and a final report by December 1.
Based on what? This "public hearing" is proving to be a very private and predetermined affair.
The
‘Confirmation of Mock RCMP Cruiser’ document recently leaked to Frank
Magazine has a list of 44 names, individuals who are “key participants”
in that aspect of the investigation. They are mostly non-commissioned
Mounties. There are a few Halifax police officers. There are
dispatchers.
What struck me from the outset was those names which are absent from the list.
For example, there are no commissioned officers on the list, who of course are the supervisors. The shot callers.
Assistant
Commissioner Leona (Lee) Bergerman isn’t there. Nova Scotia was her
command until she suddenly retired and got out of Dodge.
Other
notable exceptions are Chief Superintendent Chris Leather, the Criminal
Operations officer who, theoretically, knew everything that was going
on in the province. Superintendent Darren Campbell, another major domo,
isn’t mentioned either. Ditto for a host of superintendents and
inspectors running down the line of management to the officers in the
field. Superintendent Julie Moss, Inspector Dustine Rodier, the
communications guru, and others.
There’s
no mention of Sgt. Bill Raaymakers, the “lead” investigator for about
two weeks until he retired at the end of April 2020. You’d think he’d
know something important. Or the other lead investigator, Corporal
Gerard Rose-Berthiaume. Yes, a corporal in charge of the murder of 22
people. No sign of him, either. There’s also no mention of Constable
Wayne (Skipper) Bent, the RCMP’s point man with the families.
I
didn’t see the names of any RCMP officers from New Brunswick who were
mysteriously and quickly called – by midnight on that Saturday night –
to rush to Nova Scotia to help out.
Also
missing are the names of many of the RCMP members who were reported to
be on scene that Saturday night and Sunday morning scattered hither and
yon.
Constable Jordan
Carrollwas apparently the second Mountie to arrive at Portapique that
night. He’s not there but his father, Staff-Sgt. Allan (Al) Carroll is.
The senior Carroll was the man in charge for a while, which raises
obvious questions about the efficacy of such relationships in the field,
especially during a potentially dangerous situation.
Another
staff sergeant not on the list is Bruce Briers from Bible Hill who was
the RCMP’s “risk manager” that Sunday morning, quarterbacking the RCMP’s
response once Wortman re-started his killing spree. His counterpart
from the night before, Staff Sgt. Brian Rehill, is there.
Corporal
Natasha Jamiesonfrom the RCMP’s Millbrookdetachment was earlier
reported to be the third Mountie to arrive on scene. Her participation
goes unmentioned.
There are a
host of Mounties who were on scene in Portapique and elsewhere who were
identified from communications records, including 911 calls, that were
obtained by Frank Magazine last spring. They are not listed as key
participants. They include ERT member Paul Cheeseman and Constable Marc
Andre Blinn, for example.
Seven
staff sergeants, including Carroll and Rehill, are listed as key
participants: Addie MacCallum from Stellarton, Craig Learning from
Cumberland County, Kevin Dunleavy from Colchester and Jeff West, the
head of RCMP traffic enforcement who took over as the major incident
commander at 1:22 a.m. on April 19, 2020.
Four
RCMP sergeants are listed as key participants: Darren Bernard from
Millbrook, traffic specialist Andrew (Andy) O’Brien from Bible Hill,
Dave Lilly from Amherstand Marc Rose from Bible Hill.
Thirteen
constables are cited: Aaron Patton, Adam Merchant, Chris Grund, Jeff
MacFarlane, Nick Dorrington, Rodney Peterson, Stuart Beselt, Terry Brown
and Dave Melanson from Bible Hill; Austin Comeau, Chris Gibson, Dave
Gagnon and the late Heidi Stevenson from Enfield.
There were all kinds of other officers there that weekend from other detachments.
What did they see or hear?
The
list of ERT members listed is a short one. There’s Corporal Tim Mills, a
team leader, and three constables: Trent Milton, Kyle Josey and Ed
Clarke.
Where are the rest from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick who were racing around the province?
Some Halifax coppers are named, too.
Staff-Sgt.
Tanya Chambershad some dealings with Wortman in the past, as recounted
in Frank just weeks before the mass shooting events. There is Sgt.
Pierre Bourdages and Constable Jenna Clarke.
Finally, there are the names of dispatchers and call takers.
Jen
MacCallum was the dispatch supervisor. Dispatchers named are Kirsten
Baglee, Alex Benoit, Tara Dill, Brittany Oulton and Lisa Stewart.
Donnalee Williston was the call-taker supervisor.
The other call-takers listed are: Patrick Brent, Tracey Brooks, Brittany Conrad, Carol Howardson and Mitch Whalen.
Frank Magazine part1 New Years article by Paul Palango
January 1, 2022
A FED UP INQUIRY INSIDER’S BROWN ENVELOPE STARTS OFF THE NEW YEAR RIGHT
By Paul Palango
Confidential
documents leaked to Frank Magazine raise even more questions about what
the RCMPdid and didn’t do on the weekend of April 18 and 19, 2020,
which saw 22 people murdered in two sprees by gunman Gabriel Wortman.
The
information is contained in draft versions of so-called ‘foundational’
documents from the Mass Casualty Commission, which has spent months
behind closed doors compiling the material. They are scheduled to be
released later this month at the beginning of the public portion of the
inquiry.
Interestingly, none
of the three commissioners heading the inquiry – J. Michael MacDonald,
Leanne Fitch and Kim Stanton – appear to have partaken in the
developmental phase.
The
documents were given to Frank Magazine and The Nighttime Podcast with
Jordan Bonaparteby a source we have named Red Horse, who has told us
that their motive for releasing the information was to serve the public
interest.
“From the very beginning the story simply didn’t add up,” Red Horse said.
“As
more details were revealed it became obvious that there was as an
intentional and considerable effort to control and shape the story being
told to the public. The facts of the case are quite damning to the
RCMP, and they have their backs against the wall… yet the media accepts
them at their word to tell us what allowed this to happen? I’m smarter
than that and I’m going to do what I can to keep the public informed of
what is happening behind closed doors.”
The
documents are marked CONFIDENTIAL and Protected B, a government
classification which means that the release of the information “could
cause serious injury to an individual, organization or government.”
Lawyers from at least 10 different groups (see accompanying story) had an opportunity to comment on the final product.
”Confirmation
of Mock RCMP Cruiser: Foundational Document,” dated October 13, 2021,
provides a sketch-like view of what transpired that weekend and the
RCMP’s chaotic and haphazard response.
We do not have the entire document and do not know at this point if gaps are explained in other documents we have not accessed.
The Blair and McCully children
In
the overview summary on page six, the Commission writes: “Shortly after
10:00 p.m. on April 18, 2020, the RCMP Operational Communications
Centre in Truro, Nova Scotia began receiving calls regarding incidents
in Portapique, Nova Scotia. In three separate calls – at 10:01 p.m.,
10:16 p.m. and 10:26 p.m. – affected citizens described the perpetrator
as operating an ‘RCMP car’, ‘police car’ or ‘cop car.’ “
This
corroborates what Frank Magazine reported in June when it released the
911 tapes, copies of which it had received from a source called True
Blue. The calls referred to were respectively from victim Jamie Blair,
her 12-year-old son and the 12-year-old daughter of victim Lisa McCully
and from passersby Andrew MacDonald and his wife, Kate, who Wortman shot
at on Orchard Beach Drive.
The
documents add new information which states, contrary to earlier reports,
that the Mounties did in fact enter the neighbourhood soon after
arriving on the scene around 10:26 p.m.
“While
searching for the perpetrator in Portapique, first responding officers
located two Ford Taurus vehicles at the perpetrator’s properties. One,
which had not yet caught fire, was located at the perpetrator’s cottage
at approximately 10:41:12 p.m. on April 18, 2020; the second, which had
caught fire when officers discovered it, was located at the
perpetrator’s warehouse. Both of the vehicles ultimately burned by the
early morning hours of April 19, 2020. It was unclear to members whether
either of these vehicles were the same vehicles witnesses had described
in their initial 911 calls.”
To
conduct this reconnaissance mission, the Mounties would have had to
pass the intersection of Orchard Beach Drive on their left, where the
Blair and McCully children were hiding out, and proceed for several
hundred metres down Portapique Beach Road to Wortman’s cottage.
You
may recall that while on the line with 911, the heroically
well-composed Blair boy clearly told the operator that two 10-year-old
siblings were somewhere outside on Orchard Beach Drive.
Why did the Mounties not immediately try to rescue the children, as opposed to allowing them to languish until 1:00 a.m.?
Also,
take special note of the way the documents fudge the timeline about the
discoveries of two of Wortman’s decommissioned police cars. There is an
exact time when they find the car at 200 Portapique Beach Road, but no
time is given for their locating the second vehicle at 136 Orchard Beach
Drive, more than a kilometre away by road.
This
is an important question because in previously released documents the
Mounties have stated that at 10:49 p.m. members located the body of
victim Corrie Ellison by the side of the road next to the steel gates
leading to 136 Orchard Beach Drive.
Corrie
Ellison’s brother, Clinton, has speculated on social media that Corrie
may have been accidentally killed by Mounties after he wandered down the
road to the scene of the warehouse fire.
The
RCMP has previously stated that Wortman left the neighbourhood around
10:35 p.m. — later corrected to 10:45 p.m. — via a pathway next to a
blueberry field east of the neighbourhood.
The documents focus on the apparent confusion that appeared to be rampant both inside the 911 call centre and the RCMP.
“At
12:12:22 on April 19, 2020, Cst. Nick Dorrington, who had issued a
speeding ticket to the perpetrator in February, 2020, circulated a
photograph of the perpetrator’s driver’s license to members. He also
advised that the perpetrator (Wortman) was associated with a white
Taurus with reflective decals on the side of the vehicle,” the
foundational document reports.
On
the one hand the RCMP knew from the outset who they were looking for,
what the witnesses said he was driving, where he lived and that he was
randomly killing up to five people at different locations and shooting
at others. However, the foundational documents appear to show that the
RCMP was doing everything it could do to convince itself that Wortman
was not driving a replica police car, as witnesses had reported, and was
not loose in the community, which he was.
Shortly
after midnight the RCMP called for help from Mounties in New Brunswick,
which is not reported in the document, almost two hours before Halifax
Regional Police told them that another of Wortman’s decommissioned
police cars had been located in the parking lot at his denturist office
on Portland Street in Dartmouth. That car was the one referred to by
Constable Dorrington. It was covered in snow.
The
RCMP assumed that Wortman only had three decommissioned police vehicles
and had accounted for all three. It ignored the witnesses’ descriptions
of a vehicle that looked exactly like an RCMP cruiser.
Further assuming that Wortman had committed suicide, without any evidence, the RCMP sent its members home around 6:30 a.m.
The Lisa Banfield interview
At
6:34 a.m., Lisa Banfield, Wortman’s common-law wife of 19 years,
arrived on the doorstep of neighbour Leon Joudrey, famously claiming
that she had survived the night in the woods lightly dressed in freezing
temperatures, partly by hiding in a tree root system.
The next break in the “hunt” for Wortman occurred between 7:18 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. after three things happened.
According
to the documents, Banfield did not blurt out that Wortman had a replica
police car. She only did so during an interview with Detective
Constable Terry Brown, sometime after 7:18 a.m. It is not known whether
she was being advised by a lawyer at that point. The documents state:
“In the course of the interview, Ms. Banfield repeatedly described the
perpetrator’s car as having decals and looking identical to an RCMP
cruiser. She advised that she had observed the perpetrator load firearms
onto the passenger seat of the vehicle before she escaped. Ms. Banfield
indicated that the perpetrator owned four Ford Taurus vehicles in
total.”
The second confirmation
of Wortman’s RCMP cruiser came from Halifax Police who had interviewed
Banfield’s sister, Maureen, and her husband, David McGrath. He “provided
HRP officers with a photograph of the perpetrator’s replica RCMP
vehicle. HRP then provided the photograph to RCMP Staff Sgt. Addie
MacCallum” from Pictou.
While
the RCMP had been downplaying the seriousness of the situation
throughout the night, Halifax Police sprang into action – at least in
its own jurisdiction – putting out an alert and description of Wortman’s
vehicle to its officers.
The
foundational document goes on to describe how Bible Hill RCMP Risk
Manager Bruce Briers spoke with RCMP Sgt. Wayne Sutherland in Lower
Sackville. Sutherland then forwarded the photo to Briers.
At
7:30 a.m. ERT members were sent back to Portapique to resume the hunt
for Wortman. A half hour later the Mounties concluded that “it became
clear that the perpetrator’s mock police cruiser was unaccounted for.
“There
was concern that the perpetrator could have escaped Portapique and be
driving in a replica RCMP vehicle anywhere in the province,” the
narrative continued. “Be On Look Out (BOLO) messages for the 28B11
cruiser were sent to all Nova Scotian RCMP members and all external
police agencies in Nova Scotia at 8:04 a.m. and 8:07 a.m. Phone calls
about the mock cruiser were made to external police agencies as well.”
The
foundational documents do not explain why the RCMP did not close down
provincial highways and roads or put out a public alert.
The
next reference is to 9:32.20 a.m. when April Dares called 911 to report
hearing gun shots on Hunter Roadin Wentworth and that “the police had
gone by a few minutes ago. She also reported having seen smoke from a
fire.”
Three minutes after Dares
call, Mary Ann Jay called 911 to report that her neighbour, Lillian
Campbell Hyslop, was lying on the road. Jay said she had heard a gunshot
and had seen a RCMP vehicle leave the scene.
My
own research indicates that it would have taken Wortman about five
minutes to drive from the house of murder victims Sean McLeod, Alanna
Jenkins and their neighbour Tom Bagley to the intersection with Highway
4. It would take several more minutes for Wortman to drive the nine
kilometres to the intersection with Highway 246, where Hyslop was shot.
A
lone officer from Bible Hill was tasked with racing up to the Hyslop
crime scene, which was about 25 kilometres north of Highway 104 in
Masstown. In the documents the Mountie is variously described as
Constableor Corporal Rodney Peterson. It was 9:47 a.m., more than two
hours after the RCMP said it had learned about the mock police car.
At
that time, somewhere unspecified in Wentworth, Peterson passed Wortman
heading south in the fake police car, yet Peterson needed to check with
his supervisors about details of Wortman’s fake police car.
Previous
versions of the story suggested or stated that Peterson turned around
to pursue Wortman but lost him. That’s not what the foundational
documents state.
“Cpl. Peterson
sought clarification on the perpetrator’s vehicle, then provided a
description of what he had witnessed,” the document states.
Throughout
all this, beginning a 9:37:51 a.m. Adam Fisher was on the phone with
the RCMP telling them what he knew about Wortman and his vehicles. He
and his wife were friends with Wortman and had visited him at
Portapique. The RCMP operator took his information and told him the
police would be in touch.
At
9:48 a.m., a minute after Peterson supposedly recognized Wortman, Adam
Fisher’s wife, Carole, called 911 to tell the police that Wortman was in
their driveway in “a police car … dressed as a police officer.”
Not
reported in the document is the fact that RCMP Chief Superintendent
Chris Leather, the Criminal Operations officer in Nova Scotia, emailed
Truro Police Chief Dave MacNeil to inform him that the RCMP had Wortman
“pinned down” in Wentworth – and didn’t need any help. But that wasn’t
true.
What is noted is that at
10:02 a.m. Leona Allen called 911 to say her friend, Heather O’Brien,
had disconnected during a call. She said “Ms. O’Brien described hearing
‘gun shots and [that] there was a police vehicle.” It was further noted
that Allen could hear O’Brien scream before the call disconnected.
O’Brien
and fellow VON nurse Kristen Beaton were each killed on Plains Road in
Debert, about a 10 minute drive from the Fisher house.
The documents then jump to the infamous incident at the Onslow-Belmontfirehall.
“At
10:21 a.m. D/Cst. (Terry) Brown and Cst. (Dave) Melanson approached the
Onslow Fire Hall where Cst. (Dave) Gagnon was parked in a fully-marked
RCMP vehicle. Cst. Gagnon was speaking with David Westlake, who was
wearing a high-visibility vest. Believing Mr. Westlake to be the
perpetrator and Cst. Gagnon’s RCMP vehicle to be the perpetrator’s
vehicle, D/Cst. Brown and D/Cst. Melanson discharged their firearms
towards the vehicle and the firehall. No one was physically injured.
Details of this incident are set out in a separate foundational
document.”
The matter-of-fact description of what happened does not in any way capture what actually happened at the firehall.
Witness
testimony and our own research shows that it was highly unlikely that
the two Mounties could have stumbled onto Gagnon and his cruiser –
surrounded by safety cones – without having somehow been forewarned that
he was parked there.
Cst. Heidi Stevenson
“In
response to (Dorrington’s) information, Cst. Heidi Stevenson, who was
positioned on Highway 102, advised Cst. Chad Morrison that she would
join him at his checkpoint on Highway 2 and Highway 224 in
Shubenacadie,” the Commission states.
Numerous
witnesses report that Mounties and some Halifax police officers were
strung along Highway 102 at entrance and exit ramps and in emergency
turnaround locations. Stevenson wasn’t the only one there, yet she was
the only one sent to join Morrison.
Parked
near the intersection of Highway 224 – the Gays River Road – and
Highway 2, Morrison radioed that he saw a Mountie cruiser coming his way
from the north. Stevenson replies that it’s her – but she’s coming from
the south.
They are the only
two Mounties on Highway 2. It can be readily inferred from all the
information that when Stevenson and Morrison were assigned their duties
that morning Wortman and his murder spree was not much of a
consideration. After all, the thinking seemed to be, that Wortman was
killing an unknown number of people somewhere to the north of Truro not
in the area to the south of the town.
After
Morrison is shot and wounded by Wortman, he escaped by driving south
through the Cloverleaf Circle. He just missed encountering Stevenson.
The
foundational narrative continues: “Cst. Stevenson was by this time
entering the cloverleaf on-ramp to proceed north on Highway 2. The
perpetrator drove into the cloverleaf and then veered onto the
northbound cloverleaf ramp driving the wrong way down the lane occupied
by Cst. Stevenson. The vehicles collided. There was an exchange of
gunfire. Cst. Stevenson was killed by the perpetrator.”
While
the document states that there was an exchange of gunfire, no evidence
is provided in the pages we have seen that a gunfight had in fact
transpired. Shortly after Stevenson was murdered, RCMP union head Brian
Sauve made such a declaration, calling Stevenson a hero. A witness I
interviewed said Stevenson was likely killed as she sat behind the
steering wheel of her crashed cruiser, her sunglasses still on her face.
It should be noted that the RCMP union was represented by lawyers in
the development of the foundational document and had numerous
opportunities to comment on the “facts” included in the final narrative.
Finally, there is the case of Good Samaritan Joey Webber.
“Joey Webber arrived at the cloverleaf scene in a silver SUV,” the document slyly reports.
It
has long been erroneously reported by the RCMP that Webber had been in a
Chevrolet Tracker. This misconception persisted through media accounts
over time and was even included in the official report about the
incident by police watchdog Felix Cacchione, director of the Serious
Incident Response Team.
Rather
than correct the record and point out that Webber was driving a Ford
Escape, the foundational document team decided to fudge the inconvenient
fact.
The narrative continued:
“(Webber) stopped and exited his vehicle. Mr. Webber was shot and killed
by the perpetrator in the back seat of the perpetrator’s mock police
vehicle. The perpetrator then set his mock RCMP cruiser on fire. The
perpetrator left the scene in Joseph Webber’s SUV. Police investigators
later seized the burnt-out mock police cruiser, containing Joseph
Webber’s remains, as evidence. It was removed by a towing company under
the direction of the RCMP and taken for forensic examination.”
A review by another name
From
the outset, the RCMP and the federal and provincial governments stated
that they were happy to call for a review of what happened, not a public
inquiry. They were forced to call a public inquiry after the families
of the dead marched in protest and demonstrated outside the Bible Hill
detachment in July 2020. What we appear to be getting is a review by
another name. The grand plan appears to be to come up with an anodyne
narrative which would allow everyone to hold their noses as it is aired
out and then move on.
Everyone
is in on the game – the RCMP, governments, most of the families, the
mainstream and some alternative media, and a bunch of other
trauma-informed do-gooders.
The plan is to protect the victims – all the victims. The police, too. The 911 call takers. The governments.
There
seems to be little or no appreciation that all the people of Nova
Scotia are victims in one way or the other. We all suffered from what
happened. We’re all paying a price, literally and figuratively. Most of
us want transparency, accountability and justice.
Is
it any wonder that public-minded citizens such as Red Horse feel that
everyone needs to know what has been going on behind these closed
doors?
Too Many Cooks keeping secrets, MCC kitchen closed to public
By Paul Palango
The
long and winding road to transparency in Nova Scotiatypically meanders
through many a back room populated with conniving politicians, lawyers
and a bevy of self-interested parties.
Remember Westray? Donald Marshall? Gerald Regan? Glenn Assoun?
Now
we have the Mass Casualty Commission delving into the murder of 22
innocent Nova Scotians on the weekend of April 18 and 19, 2020.
You would think it would be a slam dunk.
After
all, Gabriel Wortman – the heinous denturist and murderer whose name
shall not be spoken in the world outside these pages – is long dead.
But nothing is so simple when it comes to the issue of accountability in Nova Scotia.
Depending
upon which version of the story one chooses to believe Wortman was shot
and killed at the Irving Big Stop in Enfield after:
(a) being relentlessly hunted down by a crack team of RCMP Emergency Response Team members who heroically confronted him;
(b)
stealing his last victim’s car and finding its gas tank empty,
accidentally runs into sharp-eyed RCMP dog handler Craig Hubley, who
happens to be the stepson of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
Nova Scotia. The sharp-eyed Hubley eyeballs Wortman, eventually signals
for help and then he and a colleague outduel the tooth-moulder and slay
him;
(c) contrary to the
official police watchdog report by retired judge Felix Cacchione, gas
station video tapes clearly show two officers leap out of their barely
stopped Chevrolet Suburban and pump 20 shots into Wortman who is sitting
inside the stolen car;
(d)
Wortman committed suicide and the cops pumped 20 shots into him for good
measure, remove him from the vehicle, and leave his body on the
pavement like a trophy stag.
Therein
lies the problem. There are various versions of just about everything
with one unifying theme -- not a whole lot makes much sense. The main
reason for this is that the RCMP has been proven to be lying from the
get-go and its political and societal enablers seem determined to
protect them at all costs.
One
would think a public inquiry would be empanelled to clear the air, not
crank up the fog machine. It would seem logical and wise that all this
be done quickly but, oh no, this is Canada where such matters are
dragged out to the point of being all but forgotten, which seems to be
the point. For the latest proof of this premise, check out the
ill-conceived Desmond public inquiry which has been struggling to
investigate murders from five years ago.
In
the Portapique matter, three Commissioners were appointed in the summer
of 2020, but one of them dropped out almost immediately, perhaps
allergic to the stench. A replacement Commissioner was named afterward.
The
top dog is former Chief Justice J. Michael MacDonald. An impressive
credential, indeed, but some recall that he was on the bench calling
balls and strikes during the trial of former Premier Gerald Regan who
miraculously benefited from MacDonald’s rulings to escape a host of
historical sexual assault charges. MacDonald is also the uncle of Andrew
MacDonald,who was shot and wounded by Wortman.
It’s Nova Scotia.
Everyone is related to everyone else, or so it seems. No big deal,
right?
Next is Leanne Fitch,
former police chief of Fredericton, a place where Wortman hung out a lot
committing a slew of undetected criminal offences. Fitch is the
daughter of a Mountie and was working for the Mounties as a management
consultant at the time she was appointed. Surely, no conflict there!
Finally,
there is Dr. Kim Stanton, a supposed expert in public inquiries who, it
would be fair to say, doesn’t appear to believe that public inquiries
should do much inquiring but rather be used as platforms to promote the
latest social engineering fad.
You
might think that these three paragons of ethics and law might be
personally rooting through the mass of materials down to an atomic
level, hellbent to uncover the truth. If that is what you thought, you
were wrong.
For 21 months the
federal and provincial governments have ragged the puck, first
suggesting a mere review of documents before being shamed into
announcing a public inquiry. Since then, they have all found one excuse
after another to delay public proceedings. There was the Covid thing.
And then there was “new evidence” last fall which pushed back matters to
later this month and into February.
Finally,
in recent months the Commission has been holding meetings with the
lawyers for interested parties, reviewing, digesting and massaging
evidence submitted to them by the RCMP, as if the force has been an
honest broker in these matters from the outset – which it hasn’t.
These
sausage-making sessions were held at the Inn on Prince Hotel and
Convention Centre in Truro. In November, for example, meetings were held
from 9:30 a.m.to
4:30 p.m. on nine days – the 15th, 16th, 17th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th,
29th and 30th. In December, everyone convened on the 1st, 6th, 7th, 8th
and 9th before breaking for the holidays.
On
various days up to 11 rooms were set aside for all the lawyers. There
were eight lawyers from Patterson Law led by Robert Pineo who are
representing most of the families of the victims. Others had their own
lawyers. Some briefs were from the federal Attorney General’s office,
while others were from the similar provincial office. There were lawyers
for the RCMP union the National Police Federation, the Truro Police and
even Wortman’s common law wife, Lisa Banfield, had her own
representation – Jessica Zita from the $1,200-an-hour Lockyer and
Associates in Toronto. She was ensconced in room 611.
The
obvious purpose of all these gatherings was to shape the narrative into
“foundational” documents, a version of the heinous story that can be
deemed palatable to all concerned. All controversy was to be skimmed out
before the final product is ready for prime time.
Take
this document from the November 22 meeting in Truro, provided to us by
our new source, Red Horse. It's a few pages of speaking notes, "opening
comments" from MCC counsel.
“Purpose
of these meetings is not to debate with each other,” the note insists.
Parts of it are in bold, obviously for emphasis.
“We
will not be inviting you to respond to each other’s comments or
question – we will not discuss or debate different participants’
viewpoints.
“The reason for
this is that the decision makers – the Commissioners – are not in the
room. We are here on their behalf to hear from you and learn from you
about what is incorrect, missing or needed in the documents. Resolving
any differences in opinion will ultimately be a matter for the
Commissioners at the (end) of the process, with the benefit of
everyone’s input.
“Inquisitorial not adversarial,” the notes continue. “Process not an event.”
“The
time spend (sic) on a particular section does not reflect its
importance. We know this work is critical to those most affected,
particularly the families who lost loved one, and we continue to keep
them at the centre of our work, even if they are not at the forefront of
ever(y) issue discussed today. To get everyone the answers they are
looking for, we need to do this work.”
Oh
yeah, and all those involved in the process were required to sign
Non-Disclosure Agreements. We don’t know who testified, spoke up or
influenced matters because everything is being kept under wraps. We
don’t want the public finding out what’s going on inside this “public”
inquiry, do we?
It brings to
mind the old saw about a camel being a racehorse designed by a
committee. This is by any definition a committee – the lousiest way to
achieve clarity. In any committee, the least able or most compromised of
them tend to offer up objections. The biggest influencers tend to be
the ones who say “No.” Being disagreeable, short-sighted and
self-interested is the easiest position to take and the most distorting.
This
Commission ploughed through aspects of Wortman’s rampage. On November
22, for example, the topic was “Perimeter Containment in Portapique.”
As
we well know, Wortman was never contained at any point, but all the
lawyers got to put in their two cents about their individual client’s
interests.
The lawyers for the
National Police Federation – Nasha Nijhawan, Kelly MacMillan and Jaime
Burnet – likely were there to protect the image of their members who
were involved and ensure that none of them received an unfair focus of
attention.
If they have their way, the end story will be that not one Mountie screwed up.
The lawyers for the families were there to be on guard for anything controversial that might be said about any of the victims.
The Attorney General’s lawyers would be there to protect the good name of the RCMP.
It all looks like the opposite of transparency.
The story is being pasteurized, as one observer put it long ago, to make it all the more palatable for public consumption.
On
January 5th or 6th, RCMP Superintendent Darren Campbell is scheduled to
tell the insiders his story. Red Horse tells us that it was announced
recently that Campbell’s appearance will be conducted by video
conference. (Who’s Zooming who?-ed.)
Campbell,
if you recall, took over as chief spokesperson after his two bosses,
then Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman and Chief Superintendent Chris
Leather embarrassed themselves and the force before the cameras. The
tight-lipped Campbell did not much better, going along with the fake
narrative that the force had provided to that date and sniping at
skeptics like us.
It’s not fair
that the RCMP got to lie about what happened, are being protected and
coddled during the subsequent investigation and even getting to
influence the final narrative.
It doesn’t get much fishier than that.
Campbell
should be asked hard questions, the kind that make him squirm. He has
to tell the truth. The same goes for everyone involved, every single
copper, 911 call taker or witness – all on the record without practice
sessions -- and let the chips fall where they may.
The
search for Kosmo is over, but now there are more questions than ever
about the role played by the New Brunswick RCMP before, during and after
the Nova Scotia massacres, which left 22 innocent people dead.
Back
in late October, I described a mysterious RCMP member from New
Brunswick who was quietly ensconced at RCMP headquarters in Dartmouth
and attached to the hip of Chief Superintendent Chris Leather in the
days, weeks and months after Gabriel Wortman’s rampages on April 18 and
19, 2020.
The Mountie was described as being a coffee connoisseur who
toted his own machine with him. He was nicknamed Kosmo. I asked for help
in identifying him (Frank 857).
The
sources who told me about Kosmo came forward because, as one put it:
“All I want is that those who were involved be held accountable.”
Recently
the sources put a name on that Mountie. I still wasn’t sure, so I put
out a further request for information about him on my regular Sunday gig
at the Nighttime Podcast with Jordan Bonaparte.
The most unexpected thing happened.
One
recent morning, I found an email from Constantine (Costa) Dimopoulos,
who was at the time of the massacres an RCMP Superintendent and
Southeast District Commander in New Brunswick.
“Greetings
Paul,” the ever-so-polite Dimopoulos wrote: “It has come to my
attention that you are looking to identify an RCMP officer that was
seconded to the RCMP in Nova Scotia in the aftermath of the mass murders
in Portapique. The RCMP officer whom you identify as ‘Cosmo’ is in fact
me.”
Oops, I was in a Kramer state of mind and misspelled Cosmo.
Dimopoulos
joined the RCMP in 1987 and spent his early years in Ottawa either in
federal policing or at headquarters. In 2008, he was named Officer of
the Year, an accolade bestowed over the years upon various Mounties
involved in the massacre file, including Assistant Commissioner Lee
Bergerman, Leather, chief superintendents Janis Gray and her husband
John Robin, Superintendent Julie Moss and Inspector Dustine Rodier,
among others.
Like so many
Mounties on the path to the top, he spent time as an executive assistant
to a commanding officer; in his case a deputy commissioner. Rodier, the
communications guru in Nova Scotia, was given a similar bump after the
massacres and was named executive assistant to Bergerman, who has since
retired.
In his email,
Dimopoulos said he had retired from the RCMP and he warned me not to
mention or discuss his personal life. He sketched out what he had been
doing the past couple of years inside the RCMP. He wrote:
“I
was the oversight officer in charge of Project J Tough in New Brunswick
whereby three members of the RCMP were murdered by Justin Bourque. I
was also the main point of contact for disclosure and the court case
against the RCMP in charges laid by Employment and Social Development
Canada (ESDC).
“I was awaiting a
transfer to NB prior to the homicides taking place. When the homicides
took place, my transfer was accelerated. I was indeed transferred to
N.B. as the Southeast District Commander, I had approximately 220
employees under my command spread across numerous detachments.
“Prior
to this transfer to N.B., I literally had no connection to anyone in
N.B., or any history in the province. Additionally, prior to my
secondment to N.S., I had never worked in N.S.
“The
reason I was seconded to N.S. was to provide assistance in the
aftermath of the murders there, as the senior command wanted to draw
upon my experience in dealing with some of the issues that surfaced in
the N.B. homicides, and their aftermath.
“I
was in N.S. from the end of April to about the beginning of September
which is when I found out I was suffering from a serious illness. I have
not been to work since, and as I said I am now retired. All of my
involvement in N.S. has been disclosed, and my notes turned over and now
form part of the record.
“And yes, I do love a good cup of properly brewed espresso, and brought my own machine. Life is too short to drink bad coffee.”
If
you take Dimopoulos at his word, one could make the case that this was
just normal RCMP practise and procedures. Move along. Nothing to see
here. But there is plenty to see when you analyze the situation.
While
the RCMP and the federal and provincial government have tried to float
the story that the massacres were merely a case of domestic violence
gone crazy, inconvenient facts discovered over the past 19 months have
all but obliterated that scenario.
The
RCMP has been caught lying about what it knew about Wortman, when it
knew he was the shooter and the circumstances of his death. Felix
Cacchione, the director of the Serious Incident Response Team, has
issued statements and reports about various aspects of what happened
which can accurately be described as gaslighting.
The
federal and provincial governments turned a blind eye to it all and
placed their collective faith in the Mass Casualty Commission, which
will begin its public hearings sometime in the new year.
Hovering
over all this is the true role played by the New Brunswick RCMP. From
the outset sources within law enforcement have urged me to investigate
this angle. It makes sense.
I
have been told consistently that what transpired in Portapique was a
blown police operation of some sort and that Wortman or someone close to
him was some kind of informant or RCMP agent. Despite denials by the
RCMP in Nova Scotia that such was the case and attacks against me by
some in the media, the thesis has not only survived but gets stronger
every day.
Dimopoulos says he
was seconded to Nova Scotia to help because of his previous experience
with the Moncton shootings in 2014, which occurred before he had assumed
office there.
He was a
superintendent in charge of just about everything in and around Moncton,
including the Hampton detachment, which had been led by Rodier until
she was transferred to Nova Scotia. That detachment, sources say, was
heavily involved in undercover operations targeting outlaw bikers.
Dimopoulos knew or ought to have known about everything going on in his
jurisdiction.
Dimopoulos was
sent to Nova Scotia for five months, presumably by then Assistant
Commissioner Larry Tremblay. As I have written previously, Tremblay and
his New Brunswick team had total control of anti-biker operations in the
Atlantic Provinces. In an unprecedented move in Canada, Tremblay was
forced out of office in July by the New Brunswick government for unknown
reasons. He has since retired.
If
it was a domestic violence case gone bad, why did the Nova Scotia RCMP
need Dimopoulos there to help them? There are far more Mounties in Nova
Scotia, around 850 (if and when they are all at work) than the 700 or so
in New Brunswick. One would think that New Brunswick could not afford
to lose a commanding officer for five months to help out Nova Scotia.
“There’s something not right about that explanation,” said a former RCMP deputy commissioner.
“That’s
not how things normally work inside the force. I have to admit, I was
doubtful about the confidential informant angle, but I’m warming up to
it.”
What was Dimopoulos doing
during his time at 80 Garland Avenue? Was he there to make coffee for
Leather or was he the eyes and ears for Tremblay, monitoring or in
control of what was going on?
There
was a lot going on during that period, not the least of which was the
revelation in Maclean’s magazine about Wortman taking $475,000 in cash
out of the Brink’s warehouse at 19 Illsley Avenue in Burnside. Stephen
Maher and I wrote in Maclean’s at the time that the transaction had the
hallmarks of an undercover operation, which the RCMP and its Smurfs
denied. I have since learned of similar transactions involving RCMP
operatives that were conducted elsewhere in Canada.
Dimopoulos
said he left Halifax in September. As previously reported, the next
month - on October 15, 2020 — the RCMP issued an internal memorandum:
“Moratorium on the destruction of information involving Gabriel Wortman
pertaining to the investigation of the mass shooting in Nova Scotia on
2020-04-18 and 2020-04-19.” The four-page document detailed all the
paper and electronic records and communications the RCMP should not be
destroying, which apparently they had been doing. Prior to the
moratorium being invoked, sources had been telling me for months the
RCMP was “pasteurizing” and altering evidence and making things
disappear, so all that appears to have been true.
Ensconced
as he was in the office with Chief Superintendent Leather, one cannot
help but wonder if Dimopoulos noticed anything strange going on around
him, like evidence disappearing, or was he just sitting there everyday
with his feet up on the desk enjoying his personally brewed espresso?
Perhaps
the best way to learn about Dimopoulos’s mission is to determine who
paid him — the RCMP in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick? The same question
goes for all the other New Brunswick Mounties who were in Nova Scotia
before, during and after the massacres.
That
is a question, among others, that citizen investigator Chad Jones asked
of the RCMP a year ago — on November 24, 2020 — to be precise. Such
Freedom of Information requests are supposed to be answered within two
months. We are a year down the road
.
Breanna Trotman-Fowlkes, from the RCMP’s Access to Information and Privacy Branch in Ottawa, responded on December 3, 2020.
Dear Mr. Jones,
This
is to acknowledge receipt of your request under the Access to
Information Act, which was received by this office on November 24, 2020:
"On
the weekend of April 18-19, 2020 and possibly in the days afterward,
the RCMP has stated that RCMP members based in New Brunswick were called
to the scene at, near and emanating from Portapique, N.S. Can you
please provide the following information:
1)
Any documents pertaining to when and by whom the New Brunswick RCMP
were notified of the situation in Nova Scotia between April 1 and April
30, 2020;
2) Any documents pertaining to the deployment of various units to Nova Scotia during that time period;
3)
Any documents or correspondence about these matters between senior
officers — Inspector to Assistant Commissioner — about these matters
during this time frame;
4) Documents pertaining to reimbursement for the services provided by New Brunswick to Nova Scotia;
5)
Documentation of any financial transaction between the two provinces or
Ottawa (RCMP headquarters or the Solicitor General’s Department)
regarding these matters.
6)
Transcripts of communications on the various channels used by the N.B.
RCMP with regard to this matter including: four ERT channels,
Supervisors channel and CPIC channel."
We are undertaking the necessary search of our records.
The
Royal Canadian Mounted Police is committed to assisting you with your
request and we will ensure that every reasonable effort is made to help
you receive a complete, accurate and timely response.
Please
be advised that you are entitled to lodge a complaint with the
Information Commissioner concerning the processing of your request
within 60 days after the day that you become aware that grounds for a
complaint exist. In the event you decide to avail yourself of this
right, your notice of complaint should be addressed to…
They are all reasonable questions in the circumstances.
Since Jones filed that request, there have been many developments, not the least of which was covered in the sixth question.
As
you may recall, I wrote about hard drives from Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick which contained the encrypted RCMP communications from that
weekend this summer. I described that there had been an order given from
inside the RCMP to destroy those hard drives, which had not been
carried out. The hard drives were being stored at Bell Aliant locations
in Halifax and Saint John (Frank 854).
Now, I’m told that the information being stored in New Brunswick has been destroyed.
“They are long gone,” said a source familiar with the situation.
“They don’t want anyone hearing what was on them.”
Maybe that’s why it’s taking so long for the RCMP to come up with a transcript to satisfy Chad Jones’s request for information.
Perhaps, the Mass Casualty Commission can do better.
Dennis Daley is returning to Nova Scotia to manage, not lead
by Paul Palango
The
RCMP appointed a new leader in Nova Scotia two months ago to replace
retired Assistant Commissioner Leona (Lee) Bergermanbut haven’t
announced the command change publicly.
The
new top cop in Nova Scotia is Assistant Commissioner Dennis Daley, a
34-year RCMP veteran who more than a decade ago was the officer in
charge of the RCMP detachment serving Halifax County.
“On
September 22, 2021, Assistant Commissioner Dennis Daley was named as
the new Commanding Officer of the RCMP in Nova Scotia,” RCMP Corporal
Lisa Croteau wrote to Frank magazine in response to a question submitted
one day earlier.
“He will
assume command when he arrives in Nova Scotia, which will be
communicated publicly once the change of command date is confirmed.
“In
the interim, Chief Superintendent Chris Leather is the Acting
Commanding Officer and has been acting since Assistant Commissioner
Bergerman’s retirement in October,” Croteau added.
Bergerman
fled the province without having the courage, courtesy or decency to
explain to its citizens what happened under her command before, during
and after the Nova Scotia massacres of April 18 and 19, 2020. The
provincial House of Assembly didn’t seem all that concerned. The elected
members unanimously saluted her tenure a couple of weeks ago, ignoring
all the blood that was spilled on her watch.
In
Bergerman’s place running the show we have Leather, the dumb-struck,
red-faced, monolithic Mountie who all but froze in front of the cameras
after that terrible weekend. He seemed incapable of explaining what he,
the Criminal Operations Officer for the province, was doing that
Saturday night and Sunday morning.
It’s all so maddening, isn’t it?
One
would think that someone in government would have the gumption to step
up and say enough is enough and that the Mountie problem needs solving.
One would think someone in the somnolent media would arouse from their
slumber and even whisper a word of concern or dissent.
But no, this is Nova Scotia.
The
unaccountable Mounties -- not we the taxpayers or our elected
representative – pick and choose our policing leaders. They come to us
from above, do as they wish when they are here, and leave when they feel
like leaving. Great system.
Carpet cop extraordinaire
Dennis
Daley is one of 20 with that surname who have served in the RCMP going
back to its first days as the ragtag Northwest Mounted Police. We don’t
know how many of them are his direct kin, but our Daley’s career path
certainly makes him appear to be a generational Mountie, the fancy term
they use for nepotism on the force. The RCMP even have an honorary
insignia to be worn on the right lapel to make everyone else aware of
who the really important Mounties are. It was designed by Chief
Superintendent Darren Campbell, also of massacre press-briefing infamy.
Like
most generational Mounties, Daley has an ‘Officer of the Year’ notch on
his belt, from 2009. It sounds like a high accolade but to put it in
perspective, here are some other Nova Scotia Mounties who were similarly
acclaimed: Bergerman, Leather, Chief Superintendent Janis Gray, her
husband, Chief Superintendent John Robin and Inspector Dustine Rodier –
the brain trust behind the RCMP’s response to Gabriel Wortman’s
murderous rampage. And we shouldn’t forget another Officer of the Year,
Assistant Commissioner Larry Tremblay, who was unceremoniously removed
as head of the RCMP in New Brunswick last summer after complaints from
the provincial Justice Minister. A stellar crew, they.
As ex-Mountie Sgt. Tom Juby put it to me recently: “Officer of the Year? That means their shit doesn’t stink anymore.”
Daley
is coming back to Nova Scotia after playing carpet cop at headquarters
in Ottawa for the past couple of years, the RCMP way. With a
$5.3-billion global budget, there is money to burn. It moves its
“leaders” around the country at taxpayers’ expense so that they can each
construct a resume that looks more impressive than it actually is.
Beginning
in 1988, Daley’s resume is typical of those who magically rise to the
top in the RCMP. For the first 20 years of his career he was in general
duty, traffic services, general investigations and border security.
Then, voila, the light went on and the 2009 Officer of the Year had his
career curated the rest of the way.
Daley
was appointed executive officer to one of the force’s Deputy
Commissioners, similar to the bump Rodier, the communications guru in
Nova Scotia, got after the massacres. Remember how well the RCMP
communicated the problem to Nova Scotians about Wortman roaming around
in a replica police car killing people? Didn’t stop her rise, did it?
Daley
lasted one year and 11 months in that job before being named Halifax
District Operations Officer. He did that job for three years and eight
months. Bergerman and Gray eventually succeeded him there.
When
he was in charge of the Halifax operation, Daley made news in the
Rehtaeh Parsons suicide case back in 2013. More than two years later, in
October 2015, the CBC reported this:
Another
issue raised in the review was that proper protocols were not followed
by the first RCMP officer to speak with Parsons and the initial
interview was not recorded.
RCMP
Acting Chief Supt. Dennis Daley says the officer meant well. He said
Const. Kim Murphy had "the best of intentions trying to support and
trying to provide assistance not only to Rehtaeh but also her entire
family."
"There
were some shortcomings and for that we already expressed an apology
that it may, to a degree, have impacted the investigation," said Daley.
Daley’s
next move as he was being groomed for the top was Administration and
Personnel Officer, which he did for two years and 11 months.
After that came Director General of National Criminal Operations. He lasted one year and seven months there.
Like
all successful Mounties, nothing was going to stop Daley on his rise to
the top. He was appointed one of 28 Assistant Commissioners at National
Headquarters in January 2019, the boss of contract and indigenous
policing.
Funny thing, that.
Chief Superintendent John Robin’s business card said that’s who was
employing him when he was inserted between the RCMP and the Mass
Casualty Commission investigating the massacres. In fact, Robin had the
temerity to pretend he was working for the Mass Casualty Commissioner.
That secret gig lasted only until he dropped in on suspicious witnesses
such as Sharon McLellan who told us about what he was doing. Robin ended
up being dumped out of that job after we reported what he and
Bergerman’s husband, former Mountie Mike Butcher, were up to. Did Daley
know what Robin and Butcher were doing?
When I reached out to current and former Mounties about Daley, it would be fair to say that nobody was all that enthusiastic.
“More of the same,” said one insider.
“Another Kool-Aid enthusiast,” was the assessment of another.
But
then there was former Mountie Cathy Mansley, who left the force,
received a financial settlement and isn’t shy about talking about the
emotional and sexual abuse she suffered while serving in Halifax County.
Mansley filed a complaint about the RCMP to the Canadian Human Rights
Commission last year about how she was discriminated against because of
the PTSD she suffered while on the job.
“I
can’t believe he’s the CO," she tells me."He is so far up management’s
ass it’s unbelievable … and he will do anything to get what he wants. He
will screw over anyone to get ahead.”
As
harsh as it might sound to civilians and the naïve, it is clear that
Daley is not coming to Nova Scotia as a breath of fresh air.
“There
has never been an outstanding RCMP leader in Nova Scotia,” said a
former RCMP Deputy Commissioner who asked for and was granted
anonymity.
“About 85 per cent
of the force’s resources are west of Atlantic Canada. It has never been a
priority. Within the force, the Nova Scotia RCMP has long had a
reputation for being lazy and ineffective. This guy is at the end of his
career, not some bright light with new ideas.”
How
bad is it inside the RCMP? Without strong and effective leadership, the
force is being buffeted like a shallow-bottomed boat in a gale.
“The RCMP used to be a destination for top policing candidates, but not anymore,” said the former Deputy Commissioner.
"For
the most part the RCMP can only attract those who would have preferred
other police forces first. They are getting everyone else’s rejects …
and they haven’t changed their training and attitudes to reflect that.”
The
net result is that while the RCMP likes to promote itself as being
Canada’s elite police service, it knows it is anything but. At best its
decision making is tentative and cautious. Skittish, even. At worst, the
RCMP is scared shitless about making mistakes. It will sacrifice its
own to avoid any hint of criticism or controversy.
Daley,
therefore, is returning to the province to manage, not lead. The force
he leads -- around 900 police officers when they are all at work, which
is a rare occurrence in recent years -- is about the size of the
Hamilton city police force. “Assistant Commissioner” Daley is coming
with a mandate to smooth things over and make people both inside and
outside the force forget about how desperate and dysfunctional the RCMP
has been for a long, long time. He’s coming to retire.
With Daley’s appointment soon to be announced, we can’t ignore what is going on in New Brunswick.
When
the RCMP was ordered by the New Brunswick government last summer to
dump Assistant Commissioner Larry Tremblay, it sought to replace him
with Chief Superintendent Kevin Leahy. Some thought Leahy was a
predictable but decent choice.
Sources
say Leahy sold his house in Ottawa and had purchased a new place in New
Brunswick, but then a civilian employee in New Brunswick expressed
concerns about Leahy.
“That
employee has complained about everyone,” a RCMP source in New Brunswick
said. “By now, they should have no credibility. But the force is so
afraid of controversy that it wouldn’t stand behind a good man like
Leahy. They just pulled his appointment. It’s disgusting.”
Who
was likely part of that decision-making boondoggle to appoint and axe
Leahy? You got it. That’s the RCMP that Dennis Daley represents.
You’d think Premier Houston, with all the tough talk that got him elected, would take notice of all this, wouldn’t you?
Not
likely. He’s probably just going to toe the line, do a photo op, mouth a
few platitudes, and then hand over the keys to another unaccountable
and dubious stranger here to top up his pension.
The
clumsy cover up of what really happened with Gabriel Wortman, the RCMP
and all those 22 innocent murdered Nova Scotians stumbled into its next
stage November 5 when Brad Johns, the Minister of Justice and all things
legal, rose in the provincial House of Assembly to insult those killed,
their survivors and those in the province and Canada who have been
following this unfolding calamity. Johns managed to do this using the
sneakiest of political tactics, making an announcement on a Friday, the
last day of the Fall session of the House. That way it would be on the
record and not covered by the mainstream and alternative media.
What did Johns do?
As
reported earlier by Frank – and only Frank – Johns came to praise
former Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman for her wonderful work over
the previous two years as the head of the RCMP in Nova Scotia. According
to Johns, Bergerman “has provided leadership, and been a positive role
model for women in a male-dominated world of law enforcement for the
last 35 years.” That phrase likely came right out of the Horsemen’s, er,
Horsewomen’s mouth. The House unanimously went along with his
outrageous motion to acknowledge and praise Bergerman and thank her for
her service.
One would think
that the families of the survivors would be up in arms about all this
and feel betrayed, since a majority of them, we suspect, voted for Tim
Houston and helped make the off-shore tax accountant Premier of Nova
Scotia. Houston won their vote by attending rallies, looking handsome
and telling everyone what they wanted to hear – that he was going to get
to the bottom of what happened. NDP leader Gary Burrill, it should be
noted, attended the same rallies and said the same things, without the
same electoral success. He just announced yesterday his time in the
leader's chair is coming to a close.
The
Liberals are on board for an obvious reason — they were the ones in
charge at the time. But caught up in the legal entanglements that they
are in, worn down by the miserable treatment they have received from
both government and the RCMP, all the families seem to want at this time
is some kind of resolution to the matter. Instead they will have to
wait for the pre-programmed Mass Casualty Commission to conduct its show
trial and publish its findings and recommendations about two years or
more from now, long enough into the future that everyone will have
forgotten or care about what happened.
“It
pissed us off to hear Tim Houston's Justice minister brag up Bergerman,
especially after being present for those marches,” said one person who
spoke under the condition of anonymity. “I guess we thought it was a
good gesture but at the same time we also knew that he's a politician
looking for votes.”
What
Houston, Johns and the rest of the elected buffoons seemed unaware of
was that Bergerman’s nickname inside the force was “The Blade,” a nod to
her skills over the decades at inner-office politics – and that she was hoisted on her own petard.
The
House of Assembly shamelessly turned a collective blind eye to what
Bergerman did or didn’t do before, during and after the massacres as
Gabriel Wortman murdered 13 people in Portapique Beach, had a nap in
Debert or somewhere, and then roamed around Nova Scotia for 13.5 hours
unhampered by roadblocks, public alerts or police common sense to kill
nine more people. His rampage ended only after he apparently ran into a
Mountie dog handler named Craig Hubley at the Irving Big Stop in
Enfield. Hubley and another unnamed Mountie dispatched Wortman with 20
or so shots, but more on the heroic Hubley in a moment.
The
only lasting and unforgettable image of Bergerman is when she appeared
on television in the early evening of April 19, 2020 looking red faced,
shocked and all-too-eager to run back into the shadows. Bergerman
(birthname Leona Marie Bergerman) did everything she could to shrink
from public view.
Who could forget her performance on that and
subsequent days? For seconds at a time she appeared on camera to -- and
I'm paraphrasing here -- praise the brave and fearless performances of
her selfless troops, descriptives that defy the reality of what actually
had happened.
Bergerman
repeatedly lamented the death of Constable Heidi Stevenson at the hands
of Wortman at the Cloverleaftraffic circle in Shubenacadie, never
finding the gumption to explain how Stevenson, a Musical Ride member,
school liaison officer and traffic cop, ended up that Sunday morning
alone and face-to-face with the murderous Wortman after he had already
killed 19 people.
Who could
forget Bergerman’s sly but clumsy attempt to insert her own husband,
ex-Mountie Mike Butcher, and Chief Superintendent John Robin, the
husband of her Halifax colleague, Chief Superintendent Janis Gray, into
the middle of the investigation? Butcher and Robin were designated to
vet material being sought from the RCMP by the Commission. Caught by
Frank Magazine, Butcher’s and Robin’s assignments were quietly cancelled
by the RCMP.
As the hearings
for the Mass Casualty Commission approached, the RCMP announced that
Bergerman was retiring, an event scheduled to take place just before the
hearings were to begin in late October. The hearings were subsequently
put off until February because commission investigators supposedly found
“new evidence.” One can reasonably surmise that they all started
reading back issues of Frank or listening to the Nighttime Podcast with
Jordan Bonaparte.
On September
28, Bergerman, going by the name Leona Marie Butcher and her husband,
Denniss (sic) Michael Butcher, sold their condo overlooking the Halifax
Common-- on the fourth floor at 5839 Cunard Street -- for $690,000,
$100K over asking. They made a $300,000 profit in five years. Even
better, their moving expenses were likely paid by the taxpayers. Good
for them. We don’t know where they were headed or what they might be
doing.
Will Bergerman be
attending the Mass Casualty Commission hearings? I wouldn’t bet on it.
The plan is for her to put everything she wants to say on paper in “a
foundational document” so that she will not have to undergo the stress
and strain of being asked questions in public. Poor woman, we all feel
for her.
One question I would
ask her is based on something Bergerman told an acquaintance before she
packed up her belongings. She didn’t realize that person was someone
close to our team, reporting to us about Bergerman’s movements. When
asked one day about the Portapique situation, Bergerman dropped a
bombshell. If we had a recording of it, it would be the top story in
Canada right now. Our friend says Bergerman blurted out that the RCMP
suspects that someone in Wortman’s circle may have been an accomplice at
one point that weekend. Now Bergerman is in the wind and it appears
that the government intends to keep it that way.
Please,
Lee, if only for the sake of integrity and perhaps your duty to the
citizens of Canada who have paid for your services, come back and tell
us everything you know. It would be much appreciated.
Bergerman’s
departure is part of a disturbing trend over the past 18 months during
which there has been a thinning of the ranks in policing and government
as many of those involved in the matter have, for one reason or another,
slipped out of Dodge. The first to go were some of the 70 or more
Mounties who took almost the entire summer of 2020 off due to the PTSD
they suffered from not catching or stopping killer Gabriel Wortman that
weekend. Some of those Mounties never returned to work. Others took
early retirement.
There are
still holes in the 911 system caused by a dearth of operators who have
departed because of trauma they suffered while taking calls. In Toronto,
police there tell me that at least two Mounties who played prominent
roles that weekend had applied for positions there – likely in 23
Division – just east of Pearson International Airport. How many more
demoralized rats are fleeing the sinking ship? We just don’t know the
true numbers. It’s not something the RCMP likes to advertise considering
that it continues to promote itself as the country’s elite police
force, a title it surrendered long ago.
Hiding
the identities and whereabouts of all those involved before, during and
after Portapique has been a goal of the RCMP and governments from the
outset. They don’t want the public to know who did what. It’s all part
of a pattern of covering up the basic and important facts that are
crucial for the public to understand what happened – which is the
public’s right.
On the political
side, then Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil unexpectedly announced on
August 6, 2020 – a mere 109 days after the massacres – that he had
accomplished his agenda and was moving on. In his speech that day,
McNeil cited myriad positives about his period in leadership. He didn’t
say a word about the murders and the fawning, somnolent media didn’t
even notice that he hadn’t.
Next
to go was Justice Minister and Attorney General Mark Furey. The former
Mountie Staff-Sergeant was doing everything he could to protect the
Horsemen from public scrutiny, but once the cone of silence cracked and
inconvenient facts came tumbling out he, too, decided to call it quits.
He chose not to run in the next election.
In
New Brunswick, Furey’s counterpart, former RCMP and Fredericton cop
Carl Urquhart took the same fork in the road. Urquhart didn’t run for
office again. This is notable because the RCMP in New Brunswick played a
significant but largely unknown role in the Portapique saga. If you are
one of those who actually believe that the New Brunswick Mounties
merely attempted to ride to the rescue of their beleaguered Nova Scotia
counterparts, I have a couple of bridges in Halifax Harbour that I could
sell you for a song.
Also in
New Brunswick, Bergerman’s counterpart, Assistant Commissioner Larry
Tremblay was quietly axed by the provincial government in July. The
stated reason was that the government had “lost confidence” in
Tremblay’s leadership. Police sources have long pointed to Tremblay as
being the eminence grise in RCMP anti-biker operations in the Maritimes.
He controlled everything the Mounties and others were doing or trying
to do. Meanwhile, as I told you the other week, he was a bit of a
shopaholic at GC Surplus, hoovering up deals on used and surplus
government supplies at the same time Wortman was doing the same thing
(Frank 857). Sources close to the matter say Tremblay's departure is
directly connected to the massacres.
“The
word is that this is all about what happened in Portapique,” an
ex-police officer said. “The heat is rising to the top and everyone is
ducking.”
All of which brings us
back to Premier Houston. One would think that based upon what he said
at the public marches that he would live up to his word and be eager to
right the ship of state and seek justice for the 22 people who were
murdered and their grieving families. That now appears to have been, oh
no, mere politics.
When the
time came Houston named the feckless, nonlawyer, ardent Masonic Temple
devotee Brad Johns as both Attorney General and Justice Minister. In
that capacity he was placed in charge of both the police and the
bureaucracy that supposedly polices the police.
It
feels like a plot twist in a Dan Brown potboiler, doesn't it? (A dupe
is enlisted to protect powerful members of a secretive society from
scrutiny following a mass murder. The Bluenose Code: Available now in
paperback!-ed.)
Here were Nova
Scotia politicians saying kind words about the leader of the police
force that clearly could be held legally culpable for the deaths of nine
or more innocent Nova Scotians, depending upon what is revealed in
future evidence.
Meanwhile, the
provincial government next door in New Brunswick removed its RCMP
leader in a bold, unprecedented and curious move.
Reading
between the lines, were the Nova Scotia pols just trying to console
poor Lee Bergerman for being a tragic victim of inter-office abuse by
her New Brunswick counterparts?
We
do also have to keep in mind we are talking about Brad Johns here, a
fellow who likely cannot believe he has risen to this station in life,
probably all too happy to do a bit of forelock-tugging for his police
masters.
As we document the
steps in this ongoing coverup, it should be noted that since April 19,
2020, the names of a few RCMP members were revealed in court documents.
The RCMP and governments have not even publicly confirmed the names of
any of them. Even Constable Craig Hubley, the heroic dog handler who
allegedly identified and shot Wortman, was only identified after his
name was “accidentally” revealed in court documents.
The
Halifax Chronicle Herald’s Chris Lambie wrote a hagiographic piece on
Hubley based upon information from “a confidential source.”
It
all smelled to me. Something wasn’t right. Eventually, I got a tip of
my own about Hubley, and I immediately understood why he was the kind of
Mountie who could be trusted to keep his lips zipped.
Hubley’s father, Corporal Carl Hubley, had been a respected, long-time member of the force.
Craig Hubley’s long-time and beloved step mother was Deborah K. Smith.
Who’s she? Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.
It all feels like a desperate and tangled web, designed to deceive.
OUSTED RCMP COMMANDER WAS GOVERNMENT AUCTION FREQUENT FLYER, TOO
It's
not incontrovertible proof, but a lot of people will be asking a lot
more questions as a result. The connections are too many to ignore.
by Paul Palango
Everyone
who is interested knows by now that spree killer Gabriel Wortman was a
frequent flyer, as it were, purchasing decommissioned police cars and
other paraphernalia from GC Surplus, the purveyor of used and surplus
Government of Canada equipment.
What
hasn’t come to light yet is that one of his fiercest competitors for
used government equipment was then Assistant Commissioner Larry
Tremblay, head of the RCMP in New Brunswick.
According
to records obtained by Frank Magazine, Tremblay opened an account with
GC Surplus in 2013. Wortman opened separate accounts in 2009 and 2010,
which were subsequently deleted. He opened a new account in 2013 under
the corporate identity Berkshire Broman Corp.
Since
2013, the records show that Tremblay made 77 purchases until the
operation was shut down on March 11, 2020 due to Covid restrictions.
Tremblay made a flurry of purchases in the 1.5 years leading up to the
shutdown, focusing on industrial equipment such as lathes, industrial
fuel pumps and industrial thermometers. What Tremblay was doing with his
purchases is not known.
Wortman,
meanwhile, made 44 purchases since 2013, focusing mostly on discarded
RCMP equipment such as four cruisers, a Zodiac boat, and smaller items.
“Wortman
lost out on more bids than he won,” said a source familiar with the
operation. “When he lost, he wasn’t very happy about it.”
Both men made their final purchases on March 11, 2020 and picked them up at Burnside.
The
protocol for bidding on the equipment went like this: pre-registered
buyers must sign in at the gate to gain entry to GC Surplus depots
across the country where they could then examine items in which they
were interested in purchasing. In Nova Scotia, the GC Surplus outlet is
located at 13 Akerley Boulevard, Unit 13, in Dartmouth’s Burnside
Business Park. There is no in-person bidding. All bids are placed
online. The winners of any auction would collect their spoils at the
location where the selected item was being stored. Tremblay made most of
his purchases at the Dartmouth location and the rest in Montreal.
Tremblay’s
regular presence at GC Surplus did not go unnoticed. People familiar
with the site say that Tremblay did not hide his RCMP association.
Sometimes he showed up in full uniform. Some wondered how he found the
time to travel from New Brunswick to Dartmouth so often to examine the
available merchandise. It is not known how much money Tremblay spent or
how he paid for his acquisitions.
After
Wortman’s 13.5-hour unimpeded rampage, which left 22 Nova Scotians dead
on the weekend of April 18 and 19, 2020, some began to put together a
dark scenario.
“We began to
wonder if GC Surplus was being used as a meeting place between Tremblay
and confidential informants or agents,” a source said. “We had no proof
that this was the case or whether Tremblay or Wortman met there, but in
light of what happened with Wortman, it seemed like a possibility.”
Over
the past month, Frank has twice made inquiries about the purchases and
asked for comment from both Tremblay and New Brunswick RCMP spokesperson
Cpl. Hans Oullette. We have received no response.
The
possible link between Tremblay and Wortman has been the subject of
speculation among police sources almost from the outset of Wortman’s
killing spree.
Tremblay’s rise
to his high rank was typical of many successful Mounties. Having joined
the force in 1985, J.G.L. Tremblay served the majority of his career as a
carpet cop in the National Capital Region or at headquarters. In 2002,
he was named Office of the Year, an informal accolade which the RCMP has
used to designate members who have been selected as future leaders. In
Nova Scotia, for example, at least half a dozen of the senior officers
on the weekend of the twin massacres were also previous Officers of the
Year, including Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman, Chief
Superintendent Chris Leather, Chief Superintendent Janis Grey, her
husband, Chief Superintendent John Robin, Superintendent Julie Moss and
Inspector Dustine Rodier, the supreme commander of RCMP communications
in the province. RCMP insiders say it is a meaningless achievement and
speaks more to the force’s cronyism and nepotism than about anything
meritorious.
Among his pit stops
to the top, a former member of the Canadian navy, Tremblay worked for
four years with CSIS and also served as head of the protective service
for Parliament and the Governor-General. Being a security guard for
politicians, or vice regals is the fast lane for promotion and serves to
politicize senior Mounties. An exception to the rule was former RCMP
Staff Sgt. Mark Furey, who once performed that task in Nova Scotia as
aide-du-camp to then Lieutenant Governor Myra Freeman. Furey didn’t get a
Mountie white shirt, but instead managed to become Minister of Justice
in charge of the RCMP, but I do digress.
Along
the way with pitstops in federal policing and elsewhere, Tremblay
managed to collect a reputation as an expert on illegal drugs and the
management of confidential informants.
It
has been strongly suggested by knowledgeable police sources that
Wortman or someone close to him was a police informant or agent and that
the Portapique massacre was the result of a blown RCMP undercover
operation and not the outcome of domestic violence, a narrative that has
been weakly promoted by the RCMP and government from the outset.
As we were closing in on this story about Tremblay, something entirely unexpected happened.
On
October 19, the CBC’s Jacques Poitras reported that the Government of
New Brunswick had made the extraordinary and unprecedented decision to
have Tremblay removed as the leader of the RCMP in the province.
Poitras
reported that NB Public Safety Minister Ted Flemming wrote to RCMP
Commissioner Brenda Lucki that Tremblay “no longer commands my
confidence” and should be replaced.
“Flemming
said the government considered it particularly urgent to make drug and
crime driven by drugs the top policy priority in the province to
‘reverse the trend of diminishing RCMP accountability to local
government leaders.’"
Tremblay was appointed top Mountie in New Brunswick in 2016.
“I
have never heard of something like this ever happening,” said a former
RCMP Deputy Commissioner who asked for anonymity. “It speaks volumes
about the current state of the RCMP. It’s another sign that the force
needs to be torn down. In my opinion it can’t be fixed.”
The
claim by the government of Premier Blaine Higgs is that the RCMP was
both unresponsive to the government’s direction and unaccountable, two
assertions which have long been hallmarks of the RCMP as a contract
police force in the eight provinces and the territories where they serve
as provincial or territorial police
The
RCMP fought back saying, as Cpl. Ouellette put it: “(the force) was
well on track to meet or exceed all of its key performance indicators”
for crime reduction in 2021-22.
There seemed to be a smidgen of truth to all this.
Three
days before the CBC broke the story about Tremblay’s demise, the RCMP
announced the arrests and convictions of eight men charged with drug
trafficking, including high ranking Hells Angels Nomad Emery (Pit)
Martin. The longstanding investigations, known as projects J-Thunder and
J-Thunderstruck, have until now been shrouded in secrecy. They are
believed to have come to an end with the arrests of four known bikers on
April 10, 2020, eight days before Wortman began his spree.
All
this is seen as no coincidence by some in the Maritime policing world,
where some suspect that Wortman or someone close to him was somehow
involved as an informant or agent for the RCMP, likely in New Brunswick.
“The
most dangerous time for an undercover operation is when it comes to an
end,” said one former police officer who was experienced in such
matters. “The informants are at the end of the road. Tensions are high.
Everyone has to be extremely careful.”
In
his capacity as Assistant Commissioner Tremblay oversaw all anti-biker
operations in the Maritime provinces. Even those of equal rank, such as
then Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman kowtowed to him and his
demands, insiders say.
Another
former police officer who had worked with Tremblay said that he didn’t
buy into the official story being put out by the New Brunswick
government.
“The word is that
this is all about what happened in Portapique,” the ex-police officer
said. “The heat is rising to the top and everyone is ducking.”
The evolving situation in New Brunswick seems to be foreshadowing what is likely happening elsewhere with the RCMP.
There are signals emerging from many quarters that the gig is up for it as a contract police force.
Last
month, Frank reported how the RCMP was pulling its resources out of
major crimes joint-forces operations, including homicide investigation,
in Halifax County.
Recently in
New Brunswick, the CBC’s Shane McGee reported Dieppe mayor Yvon Lapierre
said that “The RCMP’s not going to be here doing municipal policing. We
got the memo, as the old saying goes.”
The
issue of the RCMP incompetence is a sore point in Dieppe after the
murders of beloved senior citizens Bernard and Rose-Marie Saulnier, 78
and 74 respectively, during the overnight hours of September 6 and 7,
2019. They had reported drug activity in the community and were murdered
the night charges were laid against a suspect. The case has never been
solved.
When I reported on that
case in the National Post last year, Tremblay attacked me with a most
curious press release in which is worth republishing now:
I
wish to address a recently published media story that attempts to make
connections between several high-profile investigations involving the
RCMP in New Brunswick. This story contains many inaccuracies and
misinformation. More disheartening, it is an attempt to sensationalize a
tragic event, and to create unnecessary fear for the sake of a "story."
Police
investigations can be complex and can take time. I know people want
answers when disturbing and violent acts are committed in their
communities, and the RCMP is committed to releasing as much information
as we can. At the same time, we must protect ongoing investigations and
future court proceedings. We are also subject to legislation such as the
Privacy Act, which can restrict what information we can legally
release, and when.
Media play an
important role in our society. They inform the public, they challenge
status quo and traditional narratives, and they ignite and foster
dialogue on important subjects. Our relationships with most journalists
are based on mutual respect and professionalism. We know they share the
same commitment we have to accountability and accuracy to the public. A
story such as this undermines that foundation, and breeds misinformation
and distrust.
To the members of
the public, please carefully consider the stories you read, the
accuracy of the information presented, and the source providing it. Most
importantly, please consider what you choose to believe.
Yeah, who do you believe: Tremblay or an ink-stained wretch and his scatological cohorts?
With
Tremblay now gone, some wonder what is going to happen next in New
Brunswick. Even the RCMP, itself, seems confused about its next steps.
On
October 21, the CBC’s Mia Urquhart reported that the RCMP had rescinded
the appointed of Chief Superintendent Kevin Leahy as commanding officer
of New Brunswick. No reasons were given for the decision. By the way,
Leahy was the director of the Parliamentary Protected Services, another
security guard taking over policing. It’s the RCMP way of doing things.
It
appears likely that Leahy’s “appointment” was cancelled because there’s
not going to be an RCMP in New Brunswick to boss around.
Finally,
one more point. In our continuing investigation of what actually
happened in Nova Scotia that terrible weekend. I’ve been informed by my
sources that I should be looking for and at a New Brunswick Mountie who
may have played a key and curious role at the RCMP’s Nova Scotia
headquarters in the aftermath of the shootings.
I
don’t know his full name, but I do know this. He was charming. He
considered himself a coffee connoisseur to the point that he brought his
own machine with him. He is now off on sick leave. I have only a single
name or nickname for him. Can someone help me, please, and be the next
Great Canadian.
A few quick thoughts on the mass casualty commission
Public
inquiries are generally nothing more than a financial bonanza for
lawyers. No blame or wrong-doing is ever assessed. And, nobody, but
nobody ever goes to jail.
Pointy-headed
experts enjoy their moment in the sun boring the piss out of us, while
players, who through negligence, or incompetence, or cowardice, or
brazen dereliction of duty, the ones who cocked things up, get a few
uncomfortable moments on the witness stand, then they merrily get on
with their lives. No fuss, no bother.
We’ve certainly seen that in the past with the likes of the Westray Mine Massacre Inquiry.
Maybe our next public inquiry will bear more fruit.
The
Mass Casualty Commission set to explore the Nova Scotia mass shootings
of April 18 and April 19, 2020, might tell us just why madman denturist
Gabriel Wortman was allowed to roam freely, for almost 14 hours, with
his guns and gasoline, terrorizing this province, murdering 22 people,
wiping out entire families, men, women, old and young, fathers, mothers,
grandfathers, grandmothers, good Samaritans, a teenager, and an unborn
baby.
And not an Emergency Alert or a Mountie in sight. Imagine that. How’s that for “serve and protect”?
This inquiry, for what it’s worth, is badly needed, forced upon the reluctant powers--that-be by public pressure.
Badly needed, given the lies the RCMPhas already tried to feed Nova Scotians and all Canadians alike.
How many of those 22 victims, including one of their own, would be alive today if the RCMP had done its job?
We might find out. We might not.
But it’s worth a try.
That
said, we would do well to exercise extreme skepticism given the
politics, the careers, and the interlocking self-interests involved in
this public proceeding.
And
forget about that old adage “justice delayed is justice denied.”
Already, the Mass Casualty Commission has asked for more time, putting
off those public proceedings for three months. What was to begin on
October 26 will now commence on January 25. This entire horror story is
riddled with ever-changing timelines.
Which gives us time for 30 quick thoughts:
30. Relax everybody, “#RCMPNS is responding to a firearms complaint in the Portapique area.”
29.
No need for any further action on this file, like the RCMP noted in
their April 19, 2020 Twitter post, “Gabriel Wortman, suspect in active
shooter investigation, is now in custody.”
28.
Actually, on the sage advise of RCMP communications genius, former
cat-stuck-in-a-tree ATV reporter Alex Vass, we’ve decided to conduct
this entire charade over Twitter at a later date. We apologize for any
inconvenience.
27. The Mass
Causality Commission and the RCMP each require more time to convince
other police forces to lie for the RCMP. The very same forces the
Queen’s Cowboys refused to call in for assistance during Wortman’s
murderous rampage… it’s OK boys, we got this!
26.
First things first. We’ll get back to this inquiry thingy when we can,
but RCMP Assistant Commissioner/N.S. RCMP commanding officer Lee
Bergerman’s sudden retirement party has just gone into extra innings.
25.
Nothing more gets done until Lee Bergerman’s husband Mike Butcher and
N.S. RCMP Chief Superintendent Janis Grey’s husband John Robin find new
postings in the RCMP Cover-up Racket.
24. We regret to inform that N.S. RCMP Chief Superintendent Chris Leather is still in his self-induced coma.
23.
One moment please, Nova Scotia is patiently awaiting its next shipment
of incestuous, incompetent RCMP white shirts from sunny British
Columbia.
22. Oops, while trying
to piece together shredded RCMP documents we seem to have lost the end
of the Scotch tape on the roll and we’re just waiting for our
fingernails to grow out. Back to you shortly.
21. Golly, we just can’t go on, too many RCMP service revolvers were tossed into the Portapique bushes on the night in question.
20.
More time is required to fabricate the single causation red herring
fallacy of Gabriel Wortman as the abusive partner in this intimate
partner violence horseshit narrative we’re about to pull out of our
arse.
19. Er, um, because
Wortman’s common-law wife Lisa Banfield, barefoot and wearing only yoga
pants and a spandex top, is still hiding deep in the wet and frigid
Portapique forest in the hollow of a tree with not a mark on her and her
make-up undisturbed.
18. Lisa
Banfield simply needs more time to recover from her “minor injuries,”
likely due to her miraculously slipping out of those magic handcuffs
nobody can find.
17. We regret
to inform that the N.S. RCMP are too busy organizing their Annual
Queen’s Cowboys Christmas Fudge Sale to pursue this particular matter
any further.
16. Unfortunately,
“independent” SiRT director Felix Cacchione, having done such a
first-class job of taking dictation from the RCMP, has come down with a
bad dose of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Sorry for the delay. Please hold on
the line, someone will be with you shortly.
15.
As the esteemed, incurious Cacchione might ask, what’s all the fuss
about? Elmsdale PetroCan or Enfield Irving Big Stop? Chevrolet Tracker
or Ford Escape? Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe? What’s the difference?
14. Execution at Enfield Irving Big Stop? What execution?
13. Hey, like, what’s the problem? Did the RCMP do something wrong?
12.
Darn, we’ve lost the contact information for Staff-Sgt. Jeffrey West,
head of the N.S. RCMP traffic division, who somehow became “incident
commander” on the weekend of Canada’s worst mass shooting.
11. Er, um, our apologies, RCMP traffic genius Staff-Sgt. Jeffrey West has never heard of something called a roadblock.
10. Sorry, we have to call the whole thing off. Too much evidence has been destroyed.
9. Good heavens, just where did we put those hard drives containing encrypted RCMP communications?
8. We’re still waiting for that helicopter the RCMP claimed they ordered up from the Department of National Defence.
7.
Could it be that, er, um, Mass Casualty Commission “independent” lead
investigator Barbara McLean, Toronto’s former deputy police chief,
requires time to consult with her friend Bill Blair, our minister of
public safety, and former Toronto police chief?
6.
Could it be that, er, um, “independent” Mass Casualty Commissioner
Leanne Fitch, who boasts a Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal, no
less, is thinking about going back to her old gig as an RCMP management
consultant?
5. Could it be that,
er, um, “independent” Mass Casualty Commissioner former N.S. Chief
Justice, and former fartcatcher for the N.S. Liberal Party Michael
MacDonaldis still celebrating the Not Guilty verdict of sex monster
Gerry Regan, where the loyal Liberal presided as trial judge?
4.
Hey, the RCMP promptly rescued Wortman’s dear friend, convicted drug
felon, mock RCMP car decorator Peter Griffon. What more do you want?
3.
Good thinking! If we wait just a little bit longer the teary-eyed,
grief-stricken mainstream media, CBC, CTV, tiny Global, the Halifax
Herald, et al, will surely lose the scant interest they have in
investigating the unnecessary loss of lives, the chaos and the confusion
of April 18-19, 2020, and why the RCMP is responsible for a shitload of
it. But God forbid members of Nova Scotia’s mainstream media, reporters
and editors, alike, ever dry their eyes, roll up their sleeves and get
to work being reporters rather than grief counsellors!
2.
For more information, please contact one of Nova Scotia’s very
professional and proficient 911 operators. And good luck with that!
1.
Er, um, truth be told we, the Mass Casualty Commission and the N.S.
RCMP are just waiting for Paul Palango to die and for Frank Magazine to
go away. Talk soon, maybe. Peace. Out.
'No wonder they missed everything because they were running and shooting at the same time'
by Paul Palango
One
of the most confounding mysteries of modern times is the inner workings
of a vast and insidious cover-up. Debunkers are quick to say that to
pull off a massive cover-up would require countless numbers of players.
It’s impossible, they like to say. Not at all feasible. Too many moving
parts. Conspiracy theory. That’s one way of looking at it.
What the debunkers overlook is the power of self-interest, group think and tribalism.
Welcome
to an anatomy of a cover-up. In the context of the larger event this
slice of the cover-up is a puny thing, but in the bigger picture it is
emblematic of the problems we as a society face when it comes to holding
accountable public and private institutions, especially the police.
One
of the most inexplicable and baffling episodes during Gabriel Wortman’s
13.5-hour murder spree during which 22 innocent Nova Scotians were
murdered occurred when two RCMP constables apparently mistook one of
their own for Wortman and shot up the Onslow-Belmont fire hall.
It
was a crazy moment in an insane weekend. A denturist, of all
professions, went postal during the evening of Saturday April 18.
Thirteen people soon died, although it’s still not known if he killed
them all. Due to conflicting timelines, there is some doubt about who
actually killed Corrie Ellison. Was it the likely suspect Gabriel
Wortman? Or a panicky Mountie? Considering the already established
evidence, that is a reasonable question.
The
next day, Wortman was allowed to roam the open roads of Northern and
Central Nova Scotia and collected nine more victims. During the last
hour of his second spree the curious incident at the fire hall took
place. Bullets, shrapnel and debris flew everywhere. The damage to
buildings, equipment and an LED billboard was more than $40,000 and was
promptly paid by taxpayers to taxpayers. The wreckage to the psyche of
the souls involved was priceless.
An
inquiry of sorts was conducted by former Nova Scotia judge Felix
Cacchione, director of the “independent” Serious Incident Response Team.
The word independent is given scare quotes here because those in the
public who have been paying attention understand that Cacchione has
issued two reports about that weekend that are built on falsities. In
any event, on February 26, after 10 months of “investigation,” Cacchione
issued a report on the incident. He found that the two constables,
Terry Brown and Dave Melanson -- who, of course, are unnamed in his
report -- were so stressed by what all they had seen that morning and
the high stakes of bringing down a heinous killer that they could be
forgiven for acting like any other citizen in a similar situation.
Cacchione ruled that the two Mounties did not use their firearms in a
careless manner and that they had a lawful excuse for discharging their
guns. No criminal charges were warranted, Cacchione wrote.
But
as the public should have learned by now, Cacchione has proven to be
not much more than a competent stenographer for his ability to scribble
down dictation from the highest levels of the RCMP.
For
example, he misdescribed what had actually happened in the last few
minutes of Wortman’s life. Cacchione conflated two incidents into one in
that report. He stated that an RCMP canine officer identified Wortman
at a gas pump at the Irving Big Stop in Enfield. After some indecision,
the canine officer and another RCMP Emergency Response Team member
confronted Wortman and shot and killed him. Video recordings of the
incident obtained by Frank Magazine clearly show that didn’t happen.
Wortman was seen by Mounties at the Petro Canada station in Elmsdale and
shot by Mounties in what appeared to be an execution at the Big Stop.
Cacchione,
the RCMP, the federal and provincial governments, nevertheless,
continue to stand behind the SIRT reports even though they appear to be
little more than convenient fiction intended to shield the epic disaster
that is the RCMP these days. Judging by its lack of reportage or
commentary on the matter, the mainstream and some alternative media
potentates see not much wrong with all that.
How could this happen, you wonder?
'While they were running, they started firing their guns'
Seventeen
months after the event, a new and important witness has emerged who can
help us shine a light into the inner workings of the ongoing cover-up
which we have had the privilege of documenting in real time.
His
name is Jerome Breau. He’s 51 years old and lives in a little community
called Valley, just east of Truro. Not The Valley, just Valley. It
serves as home to all kinds of decent everyday citizens and a flock of
police officers from both the Truro force and the RCMP.
Breau
lives in a beautiful house at the end of a cul-de-sac. He’s a machinist
at Pratt & Whitney at Halifax’s Pearson International Airport. He’s
not exactly a daring guy. He’s precise. You can tell by his neatly kept
house. He drives a Toyota Prius.
“I
didn’t want to say anything before because of what happened to all the
families. I didn’t want to irritate anyone,” Breau said, explaining what
changed his attitude. “After I read the SIRT report, I couldn’t believe
what they said. What was particularly hard for me to digest is him
saying that nobody else would have acted differently in this kind of
situation. I am not trained as an RCMP officer and I’m not trained with
weaponry. I am not trained about the criminal mind. The police are
supposed to have the upper hand when dealing with a difficult
situation…. That didn’t happen.”
He knows because he was at the firehall on that day, the closest person to the action.
That
Sunday morning, Breau set out to do what he normally does on a Sunday
morning; go for a leisurely 25-minute or so drive, grab a coffee at the
Tim Horton’s at Masstown, and then spend some time evaluating the latest
wrecks in two auto scrap yards located in the area. Rebuilding cars is
his hobby.
The route Breau took
from his home skirted the northern edge of Truro. It ran roughly
parallel to the highway 104 expressway near where Highway 102 runs south
to Halifax. He ended up on the old combined highway 2 and 4 in Central
Onslow heading toward the Onslow-Belmont fire hall about seven
kilometres to the west.
Breau
had no appreciation what was going on in the wider world around him. He
had heard on the CBC that there was “an active shooter” situation going
on in Portapique, farther to the west but had no sense of any imminent
danger.
“I didn’t really think
about what that meant,” Breau said. “I figured they had some guy trapped
in a house or something. I drove that whole way and didn’t see a police
car until I went past the (Central Colchester Junior High) school. I
could see him coming around the bend and I slowed down a bit.
““The
cop car looked different,” said Breau. “RCMP cars in Nova Scotia don’t
have push bars on them, I knew that. It looked like a town car (Truro
police) because it had a push bar but when it passed by I could see that
it had the RCMP stickers on the side. I just kept going.”
Breau
had thought ever since that he had crossed the path of Gabriel Wortman
as he fled the area after killing his latest victims, VON nurses Kristin
Beatonand Heather O’Brien on Plains Road in Debert. It wasn’t Wortman
but likely a Mountie from New Brunswick called in to help out the local
Mounties, who had mysteriously kept the nearby Truro police out of the
loop.
We know from surveillance
cameras capturing Breau’s movements that he met that police car on
Highway 2 at about 10:17 a.m. He had just missed Wortman who had taken
that very route and at that moment was actually driving through Truro.
He had been captured driving on the Esplanadeat 10:16 a.m. passing a
pair of unaware strangers walking on the sidewalk to his right. Wortman
headed south from that point and soon killed his last three victims:
RCMP Constable Heidi Stevenson, Good Samaritan Joey Webber and fellow
denturist Gina Goulet.
Breau
drove for seven more kilometres west on Highway 2. At that point on his
left was a large building, McLellan Machine Shop. On his right was the
Onslow-Belmont fire hall, which was being used at that point as an
emergency shelter for three people evacuated from Portapique the night
before, including Corrie Ellison’s father, Richard. Up ahead, Breau
noticed something unusual.
“I
saw this unmarked Ford Taurus come over the crest of the hill. When it
got about 800 feet in front of me, it went over the centre line and took
about 40 per cent of my lane and came to a stop,” Breau said.
Thinking
it was a traffic stop, Breau eased his car up to near where the police
car was stopped. He rolled down the window expecting it was a routine
traffic stop.
“The two guys got
out of the car and were dressed in dark SWAT gear,” Breau said. “They
both put their rifles on top of the door and were looking through their
scopes.”
He thought the two Mounties were aiming their weapons at him.
“I
knew that they were looking for a bald guy like me, but I was driving a
Prius. I knew that was not what they were looking for,” he said. “I put
my hands up, but then I realized that they were looking past me into
the firehall parking lot. I could see an RCMP car there and someone
standing near the car.”
Breau
said the two Mounties then retreated briefly behind the car where they
seemed to be conferring, perhaps on the radio with someone. Breau had
his window down, expecting to be questioned by the police. He couldn’t
hear what they were saying, but more importantly, he didn’t hear them
shouting out any commands or, for that matter, anything else. He was
about to try to edge by the police car and get out of harm’s way, when
one of the Mounties waved him to pass by and the two of them began
running toward the firehall.
“While
they were running, they started firing their guns,” Breau said. “One
guy fired three times while he was running and then, I think, the other
one fired three times. I was close enough that I could feel the
percussion from the guns in the car. No wonder they missed everything
because they were running and shooting at the same time.”
The
Mounties were aiming at an EMOworker who was wearing a lime green vest
with orange epaulettes. Inside the RCMP cruiser was Constable Dave
Gagnon, who was from the Pictoudetachment.
The shots missed the men and
the cruiser but hit just about everything else. Bullets went through a
door and the wall striking a fire truck and lodging in its engine.
People inside were narrowly missed. One bullet hit a marble monument and
the chips exploded into shrapnel causing more than two dozen additional
holes in the building.
Breau
continued on his way. He said he tried to flag down about four oncoming
cars but was ignored by all. He went to the Tim Horton’s in Masstown,
called his wife and some friends, visited the wreckers and decided to
head home via Highway 104. With all the turmoil going on, he didn’t see a
Mountie vehicle until he came to an emergency vehicle turnaround lane
just west of Exit 15, the only exit to Truro, Halifax and the South
Shore.
There were about a half
dozen unmarked cars and an ERT truck parked in the median. The police
weren’t stopping and searching vehicles. It was the same story on
Highway 102 to Halifax, others said. The RCMP were parked and waiting
for something to happen. Nothing proactive was taking place.
“I
said to one of the cops, ‘Hey, look, there was a shootout at the fire
hall,” Breau recalled. “I’m basically talking right through him. He’s
listening to me but he’s not really listening. Hey, buddy, there’s a
shooting at the fire hall. They were all strung out. I got the sense
they didn’t know what was going on and they were very disorganized. Then
I heard on his radio a message: ‘He’s in a grey Mazda.’ They all got in
their cars and were making U-turns and headed to the ramp toward
Halifax.”
Breau headed for home,
still wanting to tell some Mountie his story. Eventually, as he got to
Valley, he saw a metallic tan Chevrolet Suburban coming out of a
McDonald’sdrive-thru. He pulled over, collared the Mountie in the
vehicle and told him his story. Breau went home. He didn’t know if he
had seen anything important or momentous, but little did he realize that
he might well have.
Today,
there are police everywhere on this case: subject officers, witness
officers, internal investigators, private investigators and as lobbyists
promoting and defending the police, overtly and covertly, on the
airwaves.
Some
are objective, but when it comes to events that might tarnish the
badge, even police agree most are not. If they can find a way on either
side of a case to protect “the thin blue line,” that’s precisely what
they do.
Breau experienced how this works.
The
Mountie at McDonald’s apparently relayed Breau’s information to
investigators and that night Breau received a call from a SIRT
investigator.
“The next day he
comes over to my work. His name was Doucette,” Breau said. “He
immediately started downplaying the situation. He asked me where I was
driving, how many shots, that sort of thing. I’d say he spent maybe 15
minutes with me, including all the chit chat in between. He wrote some
things down. It was all very brief. Pretty nonchalant.”
Breau
said the SIRT investigator indicated that there wasn’t much of anything
special in what he had witnessed: ‘Yeah, that’s pretty well what
everybody saw.’ “
Soon
afterward, another Mountie investigator from British Columbia showed up
and invited Breau to attend at the Bible Hill detachment office. This
Mountie was from the Hazardous Occurrence Investigation Team.
“It
seemed to me that they were more like damage control people,” Breau
remembered. ‘They were asking me about my mental health. They asked
about where the officers hands were that day and questions like: ‘Did
you hear them speak?’ They were adamant about whether I heard them
screaming orders (to those in the fire hall parking lot) but I told them
I had my window down and they didn’t scream nothing. They were all but
insinuating that these two guys had screamed ‘stop’ to the other guys at
the fire hall.”
You could all
but envision how the police minds were working. If they were looking to
discredit Breau’s story, the easy hook was that he had his engine on,
how could he possibly hear what was being said outside? The answer to
that one was simple: he was out in the country and his vehicle was a
noiseless Prius.
Next came an
investigator working for a law office. Where they got Breau’s name from
was unknown. This investigator was a former Mountie. Other investigators
working for lawyers are former police officers, including one who had
spent 39 years in the RCMP.
“That
investigator was telling me that it appeared that the police officer
who was being shot at had fired back at the two officers and had hit the
LED sign,” Breau said.
That
didn’t happen. Constable Gagnon didn’t fire a shot. He got out of his
cruiser and had his hands in the air while hiding behind his cruiser.
Having been shot at by his own, Gagnon never recovered from the event
and has apparently left the RCMP.
Charlie Hoyt and Deputy Fire Chief Darrell Currie
How
the LED sign got hit has long been a conundrum. It sits on the western
edge of the fire hall property and seemingly out of the line of fire.
Figuring out what happened to the sign is a key to unravelling the true
story.
Late one Thursday
afternoon, my research buddy, Chad, and I picked Breau up in Valley and
drove to the fire hall to go over his story word by word and inch by
inch. After 17 months there were a few gaps, but not fatal ones. They
were reparable.
For example,
Breau had problems placing exactly where the police car had stopped on
the roadway and where the two officers were positioned. In his mind the
RCMP car blocking the road was beside a garbage can and the LED sign.
The positioning couldn’t explain how the Mounties managed to fire a
round into it from the west, if they were south and east of the sign, as
Breau initially recalled.
Somehow, the two Mounties had to be positioned west of where Breau remembered.
Breau
wasn’t the only one to see what happened. Across the road from the
firehall lived Sharon McLellan. She is the most famous witness by far,
featured in countless news stories, podcasts and the Fifth Estate
documentary on the subject.
We went over the McLellan’s house and introduced the two witnesses to each other.
McLellan’s
and Breau’s versions did not mesh completely. That day she was in her
kitchen talking on the phone when she saw what was going on.
Both
McLellan and a neighbour across the road who lived immediately west of
the firehall recall that the unmarked police car was stopped at the foot
of the neighbour’s driveway, west of the LED sign.
By
pure coincidence, another new witness entered the picture that day,
someone who had never been interviewed by anyone. He was 69-year-old
Charlie Hoyt, a retiree, who lives a couple of kilometres to the east of
McLellan just over the municipal boundary in Central Onslow.
Like
Breau, Hoyt had gone out for a Sunday drive that morning and, according
to surveillance video from the Onslow Belmont fire hall was driving his
half-ton a few seconds behind Breau.
The
one thing that Hoyt remembered was that the police were set up west of
the LED sign and were aiming their Colt-C8rifles toward the fire hall
parking lot. But time appears to have taken a toll on Hoyt’s memory
because he places the Mounties farther west, almost 300 metres from the
fire hall. The point is: he remembers them being west of the LED sign.
After
leaving the scene Hoyt headed for the Tim Horton’s in Debert, which is
located just south of where Kristen Beaton and Heather O’Brien were
murdered. The police had the roads blocked by that time. Hoyt didn’t
want to go back home because of what was going on at the fire hall, so
he drove along Highway 104 to Truro to get his coffee. He saw all the
Mounties on the highway along the way and was even stopped and given a
cursory inspection by the Mounties.
“They
just waved me through,” Hoyt said. “They didn’t even check inside my
car or anything. What if the gunmen was kidnapping me?”
Enter Deputy Fire Chief Darrell Currie.
When
we told him our findings, he suggested that we go for a drive and
approach the fire hall from the west, like Constables Brown and Melanson
did that morning, and see for ourselves what they could see. So that is
what we did.
We drove east down
Highway 2, past a farm field and two houses and then suddenly out of
nowhere appeared the fire hall, having been hidden by a large hedgerow
and the LED sign.
The SIRT report by Cacchione stated that the two officers (SO1 and SO2):
As
they neared the Onslow Fire Hall, they saw (the EMO worker), a man
wearing a yellow and orange reflective vest standing by the driver's
side door of a fully marked RCMP vehicle parked in front of the fire
hall. Attempts made by SO2, using both the mobile and portable radios,
to notify other officers of what SO1 (Brown) and SO2 (Melanson) were
seeing were unsuccessful due to the heavy volume of radio traffic. When
SO1 identified themself as police and ordered AP2 to show his hands,
(the EMO worker) did not do as ordered but instead ducked behind the
police vehicle and then popped up before running into the fire hall.
As
Currie had suggested, that was an impossibility. There was no way that
the two officers driving down Highway 2 could have recognized the
situation that quickly. The RCMP cruiser was backed up to a door and
surrounded by safety cones. If one stopped at the neighbour’s driveway
to the west of the fire hall, one had a clear line – through a gap in
the LED sign’s structure – to see the police car parked in front of the
garage door.
Did the Mounties try to fire through that gap, missed and hit the LED sign?
A
third thing that largely went unnoticed in Cacchione’s report was that
the two Mounties were aware that Wortman was wearing an orange safety
vest.
As
Cacchione put it in his February report: “Through a statement given to
SO1 (Brown) by the killer's intimate partner, that the killer was
wearing an orange vest.”
There
are a few problems with that. Of all the almost 1,000 Mounties in Nova
Scotia, Constable Terry Brown purportedly interviewed Wortman’s
common-law wife, Lisa Banfield, when she purportedly came out of the
woods at 6:30 a.m. and she told him that Wortman was wearing an orange
vest. Now Terry Brown was hunting down Wortman, too? Why weren’t all the
Mounties on Highway 104 being asked to do more?
Also: the vest was green, not orange.
“It was lime green,” said Sharon McLellan. “There was so little orange on it, you couldn’t possibly see it.”
The
two Mounties said they happened upon Wortman, but did they? It seems
clear that something else happened. They stopped short of the firehall.
The LED sign was between them and the real RCMP cruiser.
They shot from far away like snipers.
Once
again, it raises the question about a shoot-to-kill order. Video
recordings of the shooting of Gabriel Wortman suggest he was killed on
sight by the two Mounties in Enfield.
All
this raises the questions about whether the two Mounties at the
firehall were part of a special unit operating outside normal lines?
Other Mounties appear to have been kept out of the loop.
Finally, there is this. Breau remembers hearing a RCMP radio transmission that Wortman was in a grey Mazda.
He
was in a grey Mazda. Breau didn’t even realize that. He just blurted
out what he remembered. He stole it from Gina Goulet after he murdered
her. He was seen in it at the Petro Can station at Elmsdale, as videos
have shown.
Cacchione, however,
said in media interviews after the videos were released that the
Mounties did not identify Wortman as the driver of the Mazda at
Elmsdale. That’s why we need all the communications records made public.
Therein lies the truth, that is, unless such evidence has been
“pasteurized” in RCMP labs, as sources indicate has been the case.
What
matters here is that all those police and former police poked enough
holes in Breau’s and McLellan’s stories so that they weren’t a factor in
Cacchione’s final report. One of the obvious flaws in Breau’s story was
that he said the police were driving an unmarked Ford Taurus. It was
actually a Nissan Altima. McLellan thought the same car was a Hyundai.
They also differed on the precise spot where the police car stopped in
the road.
Hoyt, who was never interviewed, had a third place where the car stopped.
But
all of what they saw and heard was relevant. Their interrogators worked
to develop and exploit the weaknesses in their stories, not the
strengths. They then wrote them off as unreliable and defaulted to the
unchallenged police version of events. That’s their big trick. Their
go-to move to save their own bacon.
I
talked to a number of law enforcement people about all this. They all
agreed that a proper investigation into what happened at Onslow-Belmont
never occurred.
As one put it: “If there is no investigation, there is no crime.”
A
corrections officer said: “If I take my gun out of its holster for any
reason, I’m spending the rest of my day doing paperwork.”
A
friendly, sympathetic Mountie who reviewed the evidence with me said
that in his opinion there must be an investigation into what he believed
was negligent and illegal behaviour by the constables at the fire hall.
“Maybe
the best way to cut through all this is for some citizen to put their
feet to the fire, step up to the plate and lay a private criminal
charge,” the Mountie said. “That way, the Crown prosecutor will be
forced to take over the case or dismiss. Make them publicly show their
hand.”
To the Mass Casualty
Commission: Get on a bus, drive east down Highway 2 toward the Onslow
Belmont fire hall and ask yourself these three questions:
1)
The two Mounties seemed to have advance knowledge about the police car
being parked at the fire hall. If so, who told them and when and what
were their orders?
2) Why were they firing from cover, through the LED sign, as if they were snipers?
3)
Did Gabriel Wortman, who had passed by at 10:07 a.m., alert the
Mounties to the car as a way of slowing down the hit-team he likely
rightly suspected were dogging him?
Oh yeah, the RCMP has insisted that Wortman didn’t have a phone or radio, and didn’t communicate with them during the spree.
In
the movies press conferences look exciting and meaningful. Reporters
competing with each other shouting out questions. Tense confrontations.
Sweat on brows. Pinned down by the unrelenting barrage, someone
inevitably cracks and blurts out the truth. Headlines are created and
everyone retires afterward to a bar for a celebratory round or six.
That’s how it goes in the movies.
In the real world, it never goes that way. There is little or no room
for error. Everything is scripted. The questions are predictable, and
the answers worked out in advance. No surprises. The illusion of facts.
Just enough to sculpt a meaningless headline in one publication or
another.
Nowadays, there is something worse than a traditional press conference.
We had one the other day in Nova Scotia. The occasion was a “virtual
progress update” from the three commissioners at the head of the
federal-provincial Mass Casualty Commission.
Virtual was an appropriate way to describe what happened. The Cambridge Dictionary meaning describes the adjective this way: “Almost, but not
exactly or in every way.”
I attended from my home office on the South Shore. I phoned in and
registered. I was the second reporter to do so, after a fellow
from Radio-Canada.
My qualifications as an attendee were unique. Over the past 17 months, I
have written far more than anyone else about the subject at hand – the
murder of 22 innocent people by denturist Gabriel Wortman over a
13.5-hour period on April 18 and 19, 2020. Alone and in collaboration
with others, like Stephen Maher of MacLean’s, Andrew Douglas of Frank
Magazine and Jordan Bonaparte of the Nighttime Podcast and a host of
citizen investigators, we have broken many important stories about what
actually happened, most importantly the epic failure in policing by
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Together we have publicly documented
and detailed the many lies and deceptions of the police and their
enablers in governments and the justice system. I am writing a doorstop
of a book for Random House about it all. There’s also a large
documentary project to put it all on film. I promise it will not be your
typical Canadian yawner which is so mind-bogglingly balanced and
politically correct that it is all but impossible to figure out what
really happened.
Meanwhile, mainstream reporters covering the Nova Scotia massacres have
largely lost the thread. With the occasional exception of
the CBC’s Elizabeth McMillan, they’ve all moved on to other glittery
sagas, waiting for the MCC, as they call it, to hold hearings and spoon
feed them more headlines.
Former Nova Scotia Chief Justice Michael MacDonald, chairman of the
Commission, spoke first this day. He touched the usual notes about
affected families, beautiful communities and resilient people – the Nova
Scotia Strong meme – being an example. He talked about witnesses and
evidence gathering and about how the commission was “completely
independent.” He said that the commission built its team by selecting
the best people for the job, failing to note that many of the
investigators, including lead investigator Barbara McLean had worked
with federal Solicitor General Bill Blair, the boss of this thing, when
he was Toronto Police Chief.
Some would argue that’s far from independent. There appears to be a guiding hand in Ottawa.
MacDonald, speaking in a flat almost lifeless tone of voice, said the
commission had a two-year mandate and was going to conduct its own
investigation to create “an evidence-based record” and “foundational
documents.” He tossed around words like “consultative” and
“collaborative.”
“We continue to
subpoena documents and interview witnesses to ensure that we are able
to get to the bottom of what happened and why,” the former judge said.
“We are committed to doing our work transparently and respectfully. We
are also approaching our work in a trauma-informed manner. We will do
our utmost to make sure that we will not cause more harm to those who
have already suffered ….
We must balance two competing but important
considerations. Honoring the public’s right to understand what happened
while protecting the privacy and dignity of those who have already
suffered so much.”
Almost from the moment Gabriel Wortman was shot at the Irving Big
Stop in Enfield, government officials and the RCMP have been promoting
the notion that they were all determined to protect the survivors of the
dead from further trauma. That’s become their collective mantra. They
seem to have forgotten that the real victims are the 22 dead and that
our society demands answers in their name. That’s how the justice system
is supposed to work, as difficult as that might be for some of the
families to accept.
“I would
like to stress that our commission is not a court. Our approach is very
different from a civil trial or a criminal prosecution, which are
adversarial. We cannot and will not make findings of civil or criminal
liability or assign punishment,” he said.
Somebody
else could always come along after the fact, pick up the Commission’s
evidence and run with it, but who? The RCMP won’t be interested, of that
we can be sure.
“However,
difficult precedents and uncomfortable truths will be explored,”
MacDonald continued, “to get to the bottom of what happened and why.”
Cynics are welcome to believe that when they see it.
Next
up was Commissioner Leanne Fitch, the former police chief
of Fredericton for seven years, daughter of a long-time Mountie, wife of
a Fredericton cop, and a former management adviser for the RCMP.
Yep, independent, that one.
She
was followed by Ontario lawyer Dr. Kim Stanton who is an expert on
aboriginal affairs and who believes that public inquiries should
essentially be social engineering mechanisms. Social engineering? The
implementation of seat belts was a good example. Then there were the
failures. The federal government promoted margarine over butter and
carbohydrates over meat. People got bigger, fatter and had more heart
attacks. They don’t like talking about that.
This being a “virtual progress update” the Commissioners didn’t take questions.
That was left up to Emily Hill, the Commission’s Council and MCC lead investigator Barbara McLean.
The first question is from the CBC’s Brett Ruskin. They threw him a
headline, stating that the commission had issued almost 50 subpoenas for
information.
Ruskin was followed by Michael MacDonald of The Canadian Press (no
relation, that we know of, to the retired judge). Alexa
MacLean from Global Newspopped the next forgettable question and follow
up. Perhaps the highlight was Marie Adsett from CTV Atlantic who got so
emotional about the commission having not created a safe place for the
victims’ families “so that it doesn’t feel like a court room,” one
easily could have mistaken her for a victim.
Finally, my turn, came. When my name was called, I could’ve sworn Emily
Hill appeared to roll her eyes. But maybe I’m being overly sensitive.
My journalistic strategy over the past 17 months has been to put names,
facts and viable theories on the public record so that they could not
be easily ignored by either the Commission or the media. That’s what I
did this time.
“Can you assure the people of Nova Scotia and Canada that the RCMP has
acted in a transparent fashion and fully co-operated with the
commission. For example, has it been given full access to or control of
all communication records between RCMP members in Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick on April 18 and 19, 2020. This includes both analog and
encrypted radio channels reserved for supervisors, ERT members and
regular members as well cell phone records and any other means of
communication between the various parties such as digital texts or paper
records for the hours leading up to and including the massacres. If so,
will the commission be releasing all of these audio records to the
public? If not, why not?”
MacLean and Hill ragged the puck with their answer.
I followed with this one.
“Video
tapes published in June by Frank magazine highlighted obvious and
serious discrepancies in the official report from the Serious Incident
Response Team in the shooting of Gabriel Wortman on April 19th at the
Irving Big Stop in Enfield. Will the Commission be calling upon SIRT
director Felix Cacchione to explain the methodology he and his team used
to conduct their investigation? Further, will the commission be issuing
subpoenas to any and all RCMP members or others who were involved in
the hunt for and shooting of Gabriel Wortman?”
They didn’t have much to say about that one, either.
The point is this. The Commission has wrapped itself in a flag of
convenience – victimhood. The members say they care. They are “trauma
informed.” They are “respectful.”
That’s not the issue. It’s merely a smokescreen.
The families were already traumatized. They, most Nova Scotians and
other Canadians want answers to the obvious questions and don’t want the
inquiry drowning in tears and sentimental dross.
Here are some questions they can “independently” consider or which the
mainstream media might screw up its collective courage to ask at the
next “virtual” press conference:
1)
What was Gabriel Wortman’s relationship with the RCMP? Was he the
target of an ongoing investigation or an informant working for the RCMP
in Nova Scotia or, importantly, New Brunswick?
2) What was the RCMP really doing that night in Portapique?
3)
The RCMP has never disclosed who was in charge that weekend. There had
to be someone with a white shirt giving orders. Who was it?
4)
Victim Jamie Blair told the RCMP via 911 that Wortman was dressed as a
Mountie before she was killed. Why did the RCMP lie about when it first
knew Wortman was dressed as a Mountie and driving what appeared to be an
RCMP cruiser?
5) Why is there
not an independent police investigation into the shooting of Corrie
Ellison? The RCMP has admitted that its officers were very near where he
died on Orchard Beach Drive at the time he was killed, but they didn’t
see Wortman or Ellison’s brother who was walking up the road at that
time.
6) Why did the RCMP not call for help from other police forces?
7)
Why did the Serious Incident Response Team led by former Judge Felix
Cacchione issue reports that play fast and loose with the facts?
8)
More importantly, why did Cacchione’s office not investigate the
entirety of the RCMP’s performance that weekend? After all, there is a
strong argument that the RCMP could be guilty of criminal negligence
causing multiple deaths including that of one of their own, Constable
Heidi Stevenson. Why was there not a criminal investigation mounted by
an outside police force?
9) How much damage has this ongoing charade done to the integrity of the justice system?
Having asked such impolite and uncomfortable questions and shown no
respect for the powers that be, I guess, is the reason why Ms. Hill
seemed to roll her eyes.
The clues that the RCMP in Nova Scotia is in a
slow-motion institutional collapse, crumbling before our very eyes, can be
found at almost turn.
The evidence can be found across the country, in Nova Scotia
and inside the walls of the RCMP.It used to be that the RCMP had a hand in
every major drug bust across the country and often stood front and centre
taking credit for everything. Not anymore.
On August 18 in Halton Region, between Toronto
and Hamilton, the Halton Regional Police announced its largest
drug bust ever, with the help of some other nearby police services and the Canadian
Border Agency. No Mounties.
It’s the new way of the world. A recent bust in Toronto, it
was the same story. No RCMP involvement in Ontario, although a few detachments
in Nova Scotia were credited with lending support to the overall operation.
“Where are the Mounties?” asked a former Deputy Commissioner
in a recent interview.
“Nowadays, they are nowhere to be found on big cases across
the country.”
The RCMP has become the incredible shrinking police force,
partly because of its inability to attract fresh blood to fill its ranks
depleted by poor management, stress and harassment.
In Nova Scotia, Frank Magazine reported recently that
the RCMP was withdrawing its four investigators from an integrated homicide
unit, where it worked with the Halifax Regional Police and others.
Knowledgeable sources say it has chosen to take this course
because it feels confident that it could do a better job on its own.
The joint forces concept is widely used across the country.
In Halifax, it began in 1996 when the Halifax, Dartmouth and Bedford
forces were amalgamated into one service – the HRP. They policed the city. The
RCMP policed the rest of the county.
Former Halifax Chief Jean-Michel Blais waxed eloquent
about the concept as recently as August 24, 2018 in Blue Line Magazine,
the Chatelaine of the policing world in Canada.“It was decided that HRM
would ensure the two police services were integrated as closely as possible,”
said Blais, who had retired as an RCMP Chief Superintendent to become
HRP chief.
“Several studies were carried out and it was found that the
best model for integration was with regards to criminal investigations at the
higher level, so the homicide units, sexual assault units, fugitive offenders
units and the like. It was determined we would take about 30 RCMP investigators
along with about 90 HRP investigators and put them into one unit, which is
known as the Criminal Investigative Division.”
Now, sources say, the RCMP is pulling resources from not
only the homicide squad but other operations, as well.“The rumor is they (the
RCMP) are getting the boot this time, finally,” said one veteran law
enforcement source. “It’s coming because of rising costs and no accountability
by the force.”
The “boot” being that the RCMP’s contract to police Halifax
County will either be bought out by the regional municipality or not be renewed
when the time comes. As it stands, Halifax is the only community in Canada that
pays for two police services.
“It’s two different systems of policing in one community,”
another law enforcement official said. “It doesn’t make sense and needs to be
addressed.”
No politicians will confirm this, of course.Although the
relationship between the RCMP and the HRP is officially described in the
rosiest of terms, behind the scenes there have been rumblings for more than a
decade about the RCMP not pulling its weight.
The naïve public tends to believe that in any joint forces
operation, the RCMP are the senior, wiser members. Not so. In Halifax and
elsewhere, the municipal forces are the leaders and teachers. The RCMP,
non-specialists as they tend to be, are the students – albeit with the
haughtiest of attitudes.
In 2007, then HRP chief Frank Beazley described to me
his frustrations with the RCMP’s shortcomings, short-staffing, deceptions and
manipulations. It should have been enough to warrant its 20-year contract with
the municipality not being renewed in 2012, but local and provincial
politicians couldn’t wait to sign up the Mounties again, in spite of the
obvious problems.
The RCMP has always benefited from its ability to control
discussion about itself. One way it manages to do this is by demanding and
enforcing non-disclosure agreements with its “police partners.”
One of the codicils in these agreements is a non-disparagement
clause which prohibits any police force or its members saying anything negative
about the Mounties.
The net effect is that no matter how big the screw-up, no
other police service would dare be critical of the RCMP, lest they feel the
wrath of the Horsemen, who are not above threatening to withhold forensic and
other services from non-compliant police services.
The Nova Scotia massacres of April 18 and 19, 2020, in which
22 innocent people were murdered by denturist Gabriel Wortman, added a
further strain to the souring relationship and has exacerbated matters.
It is not yet known what if any role Halifax Police played
in the investigation – before, during and after Wortman’s spree – but it is
clear that Halifax police are not comfortable in continuing to support the
RCMP’s version of events.
After all, not only did the RCMP botch containing Wortman at
Portapique Beach that Saturday night, it also did not put out a
provincial alert the next morning while Wortman roamed around central Nova
Scotia killing nine more people.
Afterward, this magazine caught the Mounties lying about
when it first knew about Wortman being dressed as a police officer and driving
what appeared to be a RCMP cruiser. Three of the first callers to 911 described
him, his clothing and his vehicle.
The RCMP said they didn’t learn about any of that until the
next morning, after Wortman’s common-law wife, Lisa Banfield, emerged
from hiding in the nearby woods – an incredible story in and off itself.
The Mounties were also found to be lying about the
circumstances surrounding the shooting of Wortman, a false story that was
perpetuated in the official report from the Serious Incident Response Team
and its director Felix Cacchione.
“The message I’m hearing from HRP is that they are not going
to lie for the RCMP about what happened,” said a law enforcement officer
familiar with the situation.
“The RCMP is pissed about that. They are losing friends
fast.”
“Everyone thinks the RCMP were running an operation that
night in Portapique. We just don’t know exactly what it was,” said another
current police officer.
The next hurdle for the RCMP is the Mass Casualty
Commission which is set to begin hearings in late October. You may recall,
the RCMP brain trust tried to install the husbands of Assistant Commissioner
Lee Bergerman and Chief Superintendent Janis Grey into the breach
between the force and the Mass Casualty Commission.
When Frank reported on that dubious troop movement the two
husbands, former Mountie Mike Butcher (Bergerman) and Chief
Superintendent John Robin (Grey) were dumped, but not before Bergerman
tendered her resignation and headed into retirement. Another senior Mountie has
been brought to Halifax to do that job.
There is also the issue of the Alert Ready System,
which the RCMP did not trigger that Sunday morning. It has not given a clear
reason why it didn’t do so.
Now, 17 months after the fact, the RCMP has put out a tender
call on buyandsell.gc.ca,
a federal government procurement publication. The RCMP is seeking a “risk
manager” from one of 12 private corporations invited to help it out.
“The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) requires the
services of one Risk Management Specialist to conduct a feasibility
study and risk analysis and create a mitigation strategy document related to
the activation of the Nova Scotia Public Alerting System (Alert Ready),”
wrote RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Chris Marshall when asked about what was
going on.
Like anything the RCMP has done recently, even something as
innocuous as that ad smells.
“They certainly have those skills in house,” said one former
high-ranking Mountie. “It seems more than a little odd to me.”
Sordid threesome
Neither the Halifax Police nor the RCMP are considered to be
paragons of virtue in the policing world. Each has a long history of
questionable behaviour by some of its members but, post Portapique, the RCMP
has established a six-horse lead in the race to the bottom, as it were.In that
light, one somewhat old story has emerged which has captured both the
imagination and chagrin of both Halifax Police officers and the Mounties.
It involves a sordid threesome undertaken one drunken night
in a foreign land between a Mountie inspector and two subordinates.When the
inspector got home, which was shortly after the Portapique shootings, the
Mountie felt compelled to report what had happened to superiors.
After all, the force has become notorious over the years for
sexual harassment. In this case, the inspector was at risk of being subjected
to the RCMP Code book for having sex with not only one but two underlings.
The underlings were called in to tell their side of the
story. One of them, sources say, essentially blackmailed the inspector. While
the investigation took place the threesome spent a considerable period at home
on paid leave.
When they came back to work, the blackmailing underling was
actually promoted and continues on an upward trajectory because they are
considered to be invaluable, a chosen one, as it were.
The story, which has been confirmed by two different
sources, is anything but a one off inside the RCMP. The promotion system is a
mess, where accountability is a foreign concept. One of the main reasons the
Mounties are on the cusp of being pushed out of Halifax.
If and when that day comes, it might well be the straw that
breaks the back of the RCMP as a contract police force across Canada. They’ve
lost Surrey, their single largest detachment on the West Coast. If
Halifax County goes, the writing would be on the wall for the force and its
current structure.
Let’s see which politician steps up to the plate and
explains this to the rest of the province and what the grand plan might
be.
The RCMPis stalling the release of as many as 50,000 documents or pieces of evidence pertaining to the Nova Scotia massacres that are being sought by the Mass Casualty Commission, according to various sources close to the Commission.
Although
public hearings are slated to begin in October, it appears that the
RCMP, backed by federal government lawyers, is deliberately balking at
being anywhere close to transparent about the role its members played
before, during and after the massacres in which 22 people were killed on
April 18 and 19, 2020.
“There
is frustration inside the Commission over the obvious stonewalling by
the RCMP,” said one source familiar with the internal operations of the
MCC, which is technically a creature of both the federal and provincial
governments.
“The province is finding that it can’t get answers to anything,” another source said. “The feds are controlling everything.”
These new sources confirm and expand upon what another source, dubbed True Blue, has previously told Frank Magazine about what the RCMP is and has been doing.
All the sources have sought anonymity out of fear of retaliation by the RCMP and/or the federal and provincial governments.
In
June, True Blue described to Frank Magazine how there are approximately
60 lawyers and investigators operating on behalf of the RCMP and the
federal government. At that time, he said that the Commission’s
investigators have had difficulty obtaining key evidence which the RCMP
is refusing to disclose.
Up to that point, for example, True Blue said the Commission had virtually no information about killer Gabriel Wortman’s common-law wife, Lisa Banfield, other than her driver’s license and vehicle registration.
“Banfield
was apparently the last person to be with him before he began his
rampage,” one source put it. “She is the most important witness and the
RCMP won’t tell the Commission anything about her.”
It is not known if the Commission has received more information about Banfield since that point.
The
50,000 documents being sought by the Commission fall into a wide range
of categories, including old case files and RCMP procedures, but among
the most sensitive would be the encrypted conversations between Mounties
on April 18th and 19th as well as any information about whether Wortman
or someone in his circle of friends and acquaintances was a RCMP
informant or agent, as sources have suggested may have been the case.
Early
on, the RCMP pushed the story that Wortman’s 13.5 hour killing spree
was sparked by a domestic violence incident involving Banfield that was
sparked by an innocuous comment during a virtual party.
Subsequent
evidence has thrown that scenario into doubt. For example, the RCMP’s
own court documents state that an FBIagent in Maine
could find no evidence of such a party and that, contrary to what the
RCMP had first stated, Banfield suffered “minor injuries” at the worst.
Furthermore, 911tapes
from April 18th and video of Wortman being shot and killed on April
19th show that the RCMP lied to the public about when it first
discovered that Wortman was dressed as a Mountie and that he was driving
what appeared to be an RCMP cruiser.
Normally, one would expect such obvious indiscretions to be investigated and cited by the Serious Incident Response Team headed by former judge Felix Cacchione.
However, Cacchione’s two official reports to date not only failed to
detect problems with the RCMP narratives, but also found no reason to
challenge the force, in spite of apparently incontrovertible evidence to
the contrary.
Destruction order not carried out
The RCMP’s encrypted communications records seem to be one thing the force is adamant about not releasing.
True
Blue revealed to Frank recently that the force ordered the encrypted
tapes to be destroyed last fall under the guise of it being “a normal
housekeeping matter.”
The destruction order was not carried out, but only by happenstance, True Blue said.
Copies of the communications were being stored on hard drives at two locations. One was at the fortress-like Bell Aliant building on North Street, just south of Robie Street. Another set of communications was being kept at a similar building in downtown Saint John, NB.
“The RCMP and CSIShave
space in those buildings,” True Blue said. “The order was to destroy
the hard drives, but an employee botched the job and instead put the
hard drives on a shelf.”
Two events happened last fall which appear to relate to the hard drives and their contents.
On October 15, 2020, the RCMP quietly announced a “Moratorium on the destruction of information involving Gabriel Wortman ….”
When the existence of the moratorium was leaked to the podcast Little Grey Cells and
then Frank magazine in November, the RCMP described the ongoing
destruction as something normal – nothing for the public to worry about.
But, True Blue says, this was anything but true.
“They are particularly worried about what is on the encrypted communications,” the source said.
On
November 13, 2020, the city of Saint John was hit by a massive cyber
attack that shut down many operations in the downtown core.
“The
Mounties and, maybe, CSIS, used that attack as an excuse to seize the
hard drives in New Brunswick,” True Blue said. “No one is sure where
they are now.”
The determination
by the Mounties to resist any form of accountability, be it from
governments, the Mass Casualty Commission or the general public has been
readily apparent from the outset.
The
RCMP held four paltry press briefings shortly after the massacres. It
described at various times how it was withholding information to protect
a supposedly massive ongoing investigation, the results of which, if it
actually existed, have never been disclosed.
The RCMP attempted to insinuate the husbands of Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman and Chief Superintendent Janis Gray as gatekeepers between the force and the Commission. After the appointments of the two men, Chief Superintendent John Robin and former Mountie Mike Butcher
were first revealed in Frank and later elsewhere, and Bergerman
announced her retirement would take effect just before the Commission
begins its hearings. The RCMP then announced that the appointments of
Robin and Butcher had been rescinded.
We
don’t know what is on the encrypted communication logs, but the public
has a hint of what might be there after the disclosure of similar
information was found eight months ago on the archived records of the Pictou County Public Safety Channel.
Those recordings, also from the early morning hours of April 19th,
provided much information about RCMP personnel at the original scene and
what they were doing there, much of which contradicted what the RCMP
has been saying.
The RCMP and
the federal and provincial governments want the public to believe
everything is moving along as expected as the inquiry approaches, but
every indication suggests that Commission investigators are becoming
disgruntled about the way things are unfolding.
“The mood there is foul,” said a source close to the commission.
Meanwhile, a provincial election campaign is well underway and not a word about all this has been spoken by any of the leaders.
What do the Police Community and Black communities have in common
July 28, 2021
Calvin Lawrence former rcmp officer author of the book Black Cop
What do the Police Community and Black Communities have in common from a cultural and personal aspect?
1. Both the Black communities and the Police Agencies are not going away.
2. Both police officers and black people strive to get home safe at the end of the day.
3.
There are severe consequences for both the police and black people if
they report wrong doing and testify in court of wrongdoing against their
own people.
4. Both the black communities and the police communities have distinct cultures.
5. Bad police officers hide among the good police officers. Black people who commit crimes hide
witin the black communities with the law bidding citizens.
6. Both the police and black people don’t want to be judged as a group because of the negative actions of one.
The
onus to bring professional policing to the black communities is the
responsibility of the police. That is because the police took the oath.
Was Chris Leather referring to the death of Corrie Ellison
July 26, 2021
FRANK MAGAZINE JULY 25, 2021
'THERE WAS AN EXCHANGE OF GUNFIRE.” WAS CHRIS LEATHER REFERRING TO THE DEATH OF Corrie Ellison?
By Paul Palango
In
the early evening of April 19, 2020, the RCMP held its first press
conference in which it attempted to explain to the world what had just
happened in Nova Scotia earlier that day and the night before.
It
was a curious and disturbing event. Assistant Commissioner Lee
Bergerman and Chief Superintendent Chris Leather didn’t appear to know
much of anything about what had taken place.
More
than 20 hours after the first murder, the top two Mounties in Nova
Scotia still didn’t know how many people Gabriel Wortman had killed in
his unprecedented spree. Under gentle questioning from reporters,
Leather said that “in excess of 10” were dead. There were actually 22.
About 19 minutes into the 28-minute press conference, Leather was asked this question by a reporter:
“Was there gunfire exchanged between an officer and the suspect in the shootings?”
“I
can’t tell you exactly,” Leather said, “because I’m not sure of that.
But, at one point during the course of the evening, there was an
exchange of gunfire.”
Leather
added that the RCMP had referred three matters to the Serious Incident
Response Team headed by former judge Felix Cacchione.
One
was the shooting of Wortman by RCMP officers at the Irving Big Stop in
Enfield. A second matter was the wild shoot-up of the Onslow-Belmont
fire hall by two RCMP officers who opened fire on a fellow officer and
an EMO worker. They missed the humans with every shot but caused $40,000
damage to the fire hall and equipment.
The
third matter was the vague exchange of gunfire that Leather talked
about. Frank editor Andrew Douglas picked up on this early on and asked a
question about it at the next press conference.
“First
of all, can you give us some basic detail on the two additional probes
by SIRT, please?” Douglas asked, referring to the Onslow-Belmont fire
hall and the third undescribed event.
“So,
the one additional probe that I referred to yesterday was the final
takedown of the suspect".
Leather sounded even more nervous now. He
chose his words carefully. “The other two have come to light pursuant to
our investigation, ah, and we thought it was appropriate to make those
referrals. Um, They’re sensitive in nature, ah, I’m afraid I can’t say
anything more about those ah, and, I, I, I would suggest and recommend
that you direct those questions to SIRT. I don’t believe they have
commented on those two additional referrals and it wouldn’t be fair for
me to comment in that regard.”
“Does it involve the police involvement in the injury and or death of one of the victims? Is that fair to say?” Douglas pressed.
“Two
separate instances,” Leather continued, “obviously two separate
referrals, ah, with very different circumstances. Ah, and there was a
use of force issue in both instances however I, I cannot speak to who
was involved other than it was RCMP members in both those instances.”
We now know what SIRT director Cacchione did with two of those investigations.
In
the shooting of Wortman, Cacchione did not reveal that the RCMP
accidentally had run into Wortman at the Petro Canada station in
Elmsdale a few minutes before he was killed at the Irving Big Stop in
Enfield. Video tapes acquired by Frank and released to the public appear
to show that in the final confrontation at the Big Stop, RCMP ERT
members appeared to make no attempt to identify or arrest Wortman.
Former police officers who have viewed the tapes say that the RCMP
appear to have executed Wortman. Cacchione is sticking to his version of
the story that everything the RCMP did was by the book and entirely
lawful, even though he obviously conflated the incident at the Petro
Canada station with what took place at the Irving Big Stop.
In
the Onslow-Belmont fire hall shoot-up, Cacchione exonerated the two
Mounties there of any wrongdoing even though they made no attempt to
identify their targets, fired wildly and then left the scene as quickly
as they came. Even the number of shots fired according to Cacchione
don’t appear to match up with the number of bullet holes found around
the property.
We might not even
have known that much about what happened at Onslow-Belmont, if not for
eyewitness Sharon McLellan and her husband, Tim, paying a visit to the
firehall a few hours after the bullets flew.
'Well that changes everything'
Like
good Nova Scotian neighbours, they were bringing refreshments to those
at the firehall when this exchange took place between the McLellans and a
Mountie.
“Can I ask you a question?” Sharon inquired.
“What’s that?” the Mountie asked.
“Why were they shooting at the firehall?
“You saw that?”
“Yeah, I seen it all,” Sharon said.
“Well, that changes everything,” the Mountie said. “I’ll need your name and number.”
Sharon
gave him her information and thought she was doing the right thing. It
never occurred to her that something nefarious might be happening right
before her eyes.
Tim was a little more skeptical. “I think they were trying to hide it.”
Both McLellans soon came to believe that after the wild shoot-up, the Mounties came up with an instant plan to cover it up.
“Were they going to try to blame Wortman for all that?” Sharon asked.
“I think so,” Tim responded.
The third incident that Leather said was referred to SIRT was never pursued.
On
May 11, 2020, Cpl. Lisa Croteau stated in an omnibus press release
dealing with myriad issues that the third investigation involved whether
Constable Heidi Stevenson had fired her weapon before being killed by
Wortman at a traffic circle near Shubenacadie. The RCMP took over that
investigation, Croteau said.
That
decision made it sound like Stevenson did not fire her weapon, which
flew in the face of suggestions made by the RCMP and its union leaders
who from the outset had declared that Stevenson had “engaged” Wortman.
Eyewitness accounts from the scene appear to indicate that Stevenson was
killed in the driver’s seat of her cruiser.
But was the third incident referred to SIRT actually that shooting? Or was it actually the shooting of Corrie Ellison?
RCMP
spokesperson Cpl. Chris Marshall said in an email: “The third referral
was not related to the death of Corrie Ellison who died at the hands of
Mr. Wortman and not the police. It was related to the death of Cst.
Stevenson who also died as a result of Mr. Wortman’s actions and not
those of a police officer."
If SIRT didn’t investigate the matter and there was no coroner’s inquest, how does the RCMP know that?
Finally,
in an entirely unsurprising move, Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman,
the head of the RCMP in Nova Scotia, has now announced her retirement,
which goes into effect just before the Mass Casualty Commission is
scheduled to begin its “hearings” in late October. She is likely off on
vacation or sick time until then. That means that even if the Commission
whipped up an ounce of courage and tried to compel Bergerman to produce
documents, data or evidence, she no longer can because her keys have
been taken away from her.
Honest mistake or Freudian slip?
But let’s return to the issue of what Chief Supt. Leather said at that press conference, and what he may have meant.
We
expect the police to be precise in their language. After all, they have
all the facts at hand and a duty to act without fear or favour to
anyone. To be honest and trustworthy at all times. In his statement on
April 19, 2020 Leather didn’t say the event took place “this morning,”
but rather “during the course of the evening.” That’s a big difference –
13 hours.
Perhaps, under the
pressure and strain of the moment, Leather misspoke and, if so, my
apologies for pushing forward. Or, perhaps, it was a Freudian slip and
he let out details he meant to hide. It wouldn’t be the first time that
happened to someone in that situation.
There
is plenty of room for skepticism considering how it has clearly been
shown that the RCMP and its enablers in government and SIRT have
attempted to fudge and conceal facts in an outright attempt to deceive
the public about what the force did and didn’t do that disastrous
weekend.
The issue of who shot
Corrie Ellison was all but moot until the reluctant RCMP was forced by a
judge to provide a statement of defense in a class action suit brought a
year earlier on behalf of the families of the victims.
In
that sworn statement Superintendent Darren Campbell said that the first
RCMP officers who ventured down Orchard Beach Drive that Saturday night
found a body by the side of the road at 10:49 p.m.
The claim by Campbell raised a host of questions about what had actually transpired.
What caused that female corporal to lose her composure?
The
RCMP say the first officers to arrive at Portapique Beach got there at
10:26 p.m., a full 25 minutes after a call came in from Jamie Blair
reporting that Wortman, dressed as a police officer and driving a
Mountie car, had killed her husband. The RCMP say that was the first 911
call. Other calls were made by Blair’s 12-year-old son at 10:16 and by
neighbour Andrew MacDonald at 10:26 p.m. MacDonald was wounded by
Wortman and made his way up to Portapique Beach Road at around 10:29
p.m., based upon the time elapsed during his time on the phone with the
911 operator.
The Blair child
made his call from the basement of Lisa McCully’s house where he and his
10-year-old brother had sought refuge after their parents were
murdered. McCully’s 12-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son were also
there, although the two younger children had left the house and were
outside somewhere, according to the 911 tapes.
What
is important about the timing of that call is what the 911 operators
were told by the heroic Blair boy during his time on the phone between
10:16 and 10:23 p.m, before the call was passed over to the RCMP. We do
not know what transpired during the next 2 ½ hours the child was on the
phone with the Mounties.
The
time-stamped tapes, however, provide a more solid foundation for the
truth than anything the RCMP has released to date. Some of the obvious
anomalies include:
-The RCMP
continues to insist that the first 911 call came in from Jamie Blair at
10:01 p.m., but in the call at 10:16 p.m. her son tells the police about
Wortman burning down his warehouse. It appears that the 911 operators
already knew about the fire and that the Bass River fire department was
already on standby. So who called 911 about the fires and when did they
call? It appears that such calls must have been made before 10 p.m.
In
previous stories over the past 15 months, it has been reported and not
disputed by the RCMP that a female corporal did two unusual things that
night. At one point, police sources say, she ordered members not to go
down the road, apparently to attempt a rescue of the four children. “If
you go down there this will be your last shift in the RCMP,” she was
quoted as saying. Secondly, sources also say, the corporal hid in the
bushes at one point and threw away her service weapon. What possibly
could have caused the corporal to lose her composure?
The
timing places so many characters in roughly the same area at the same
time – the first three RCMP officers on the scene, Wortman, Andrew and
Katie MacDonald, Corrie Ellison and the two 10-year-old boys.
The
911 tapes show that Wortman shot at Andrew Macdonald around 10:28 p.m.
and then fled in an unknown direction, likely south. It would have taken
him about two minutes to get to the Tuck house.
After killing Aaron
Tuck, Jolene Oliver and Emily Tuck, he would have used up a few more
minutes to kill Peter and Joy Bond. It would have then taken him several
more minutes to traverse the blueberry field path to escape via Brown
Loop to Highway 2.
The RCMP’s
initial narrative stated that Wortman left the community at 10:35 p.m.
via a path beside a 250-acre blueberry field to the east of the
Portapique Beach community.
That story did not leave enough time for Wortman to commit what may have been his last five murders.
Later
the RCMP changed its mind, and said that Wortman left the community at
10:45 p.m., but there is a witness who was sitting at Brown Loop and the
blueberry path route at 10:38 p.m. That perfectly positioned witness,
who has asked to remain anonymous, did not see Wortman leave.
The
RCMP subsequently said that Wortman left Portapique Beach but has not
clarified how he escaped. Did Wortman drive right past the police
location at the intersection of Highway 2 and Portapique Beach Road?
In
Campbell’s affidavit, he stated that two Mounties walked down Orchard
Beach Drive in tactical formation and were later joined by a third
unidentified Mountie. Two other Mounties maintained their positions near
the intersection with Highway 2.
Campbell
said the Mounties found Corrie Ellison’s body at 10:49 p.m., a time
which his brother, Clinton, finds incredible. By that time, Clinton was
already walking up the road toward where his brother was murdered. He
did not hear a gunshot, although he and Corrie had heard an earlier shot
and saw the flames from the burning warehouse to the north of their
father’s place.
Clinton Ellison
retreated down the road after finding his brother’s body, hid in the
woods, called his father, Richard, to explain what happened and Richard
called 911 – at 10:59 p.m.
How could Clinton have not seen the Mounties and vice versa?
Sharon
and Tim McLellan’s observations and suspicion that the RCMP seemed to
be planning to falsely blame the shoot-up at Onslow-Belmont firehall on
Gabriel Wortman strongly suggests that the RCMP was actively in cover-up
mode.
The story all along has
been that Wortman shot and killed 22 people, but how do we know that he
killed every one of those people?
The normal procedure in shooting deaths is to match each bullet with a murder weapon.
Did
the RCMP or SIRT do that? Were the guns of those first officers at the
scene in Portapique Beach seized and examined by a forensics lab? At
Onslow-Belmont? At Enfield?
The
easy thing to do is blame Corrie Ellison’s death on Gabriel Wortman. But
the RCMP’s approach to investigating his death violated just about
every known precept of modern policing.
The
Mounties say they found Wortman's body at 10:49 p.m. Archived
recordings from the Pictou County Public Safety Channel show that other
Mounties came across his body at 1:50 a.m. and noted that he had been
killed with a .40 calibre Smith and Wesson – the same weaponry used by
the RCMP. A third RCMP crew came across Ellison’s body and that of Lisa
McCully lying nearby and declared them dead. That was shortly after 3
a.m. The RCMP did not rope off the scene or maintain its position in the
area. The first Mounties on the scene were at the house where the
children were hiding in the basement.
They did not hold their position
as police are trained to do. They did not seek to preserve life, as
police are committed to doing. Instead, the Mounties retreated.
Meanwhile, during the overnight and morning hours police and civilian
vehicles were allowed to drive through the murder scenes and destroy or
compromise evidence. Individuals on foot could have done the same. Was
that part of the RCMP’s plan to muddy the waters about what really
happened?
It’s a reasonable question.
If
one accepts the premise that the Mounties might have accidentally
killed Corrie Ellison, it might help to explain much of what the force
did afterward, including why the traumatized corporal threw away her gun
and hid in the bushes that night.
In
yet another episode of White Women Are Always Allowed To Be The Victim,
I was scrolling on Twitter and discovered an incident between Abigail
Elphick, a White woman that assaulted Ijeoma Ukenta, a Black woman, in a
Victoria Secret at Short Hills Mall. Many online have dubbed Abigail
“Victoria’s Secret Karen,” however, I won’t be referring to Abigail as
Karen. While I have used the term in the past, I realize these women are
becoming memes and the butt of jokes, and the harm they have caused
historically and currently is secondary. However, women like Abigail are
treacherous women. As stated in my blog, Karen Is You, “Just looking at
Karen, she seems harmless. She is often very unassuming and is
non-threatening in appearance. Still, women like Karen have not only
supported racism but have instituted and upheld racism throughout
history. While the Karen memes are sweeping across the internet and
becoming a part of our lexicon, it is important to note women like Karen
are dangerous women.” We have seen the impact on Black lives when a
White woman cries wolf.
While
Abigail claimed through her off-off-off-Broadway performance that she
was having a mental breakdown, there is absolutely nothing wrong with
Abigail. Abigail realizes that her antics are being filmed, and in the
age of social media, she understands these incidents inevitably go
viral, and many White people lose their employment. Abigail is concerned
about herself, so she must begin the performance to paint herself as
the victim. She inherently understands that she will be seen as the
victim, and the Black woman will be seen as the aggressor. She
understands that she will not have to face scrutiny, judgment,
embarrassment, and potential job loss if she can pull this performance
off.
Abigail
is very strategic, and people must understand there is a method to her
performance. As you read this blog, know that none of her actions are
random, and the incidents are always rooted in racism. Hopefully, after
reading this blog, you will recognize it when the next viral video
comes along.
The following are the steps to understanding the stages of White tears:
Entitlement
– These incidents will always start with entitlement, and many White
people feel they are entitled strictly based on being White. For
instance, a Black person can be moving into a home in a well-off
community, and a White person feels they do not belong there. White
people are entitled to live in beautiful neighborhoods with all the
amenities, not Black people. Who does this Black person think they are? A
Black person is shopping, and a White person feels how dare they be in
this store, surely they can’t afford anything in this store like I can. A
Black person walks down the sidewalk, and a White person decides Black
people do not belong here; this is my community. All of this comes from a
sense of entitlement. This is my space; this is my community; it is my
right to be here, not yours; it is my right to cut the line in front of
you, or how dare you do not move when I say move, etc.
Inconvenienced:
The inconvenience is connected to the entitlement. For instance, when I
wrote my blog, Do Not Move Off The Sidewalk, a Black woman told me that
a White woman attempted to cut her in line, and she held her space and
told her that she was not moving. The White woman needed to wait. The
White woman insisted what she needed was going to take just a few
minutes. But what does that have to do with the Black woman? She should
wait just like anyone else. But because she feels entitled, she is not
going to be inconvenienced by waiting in line. It’s as if she thinks,
“Why do I have to wait in line when I can just cut in front of the Black
woman? Why doesn’t she understand that I am entitled to go first? Why
do I have to be inconvenienced because some Negro is ahead of me?” This
sense of being inconvenienced has deadly consequences for Black people.
We have seen this with the murders of Aidan Ellison and Jordan Davis,
two young Black men that White men killed because they claimed they were
playing their music too loud. How dare they? People need to understand
it was not the music. The real issue was, a Black person was in the
space, had the right to be in the space, and was not listening to a
White man who felt entitled and inconvenienced and felt that a Black man
needed to submit to his perceived authority by turning his music down.
Perceived
Authority/ Policing – White people, feel it is their job to “police”
Black people in spaces. Strictly based on being White many feel they
have the authority to determine who belongs in spaces. This perceived
authority is historical. In Slave Patrols: An Early Form of American
Policing, Chelsea Hansen writes, “The process of how one became a
patroller differed throughout the colonies. Some governments ordered
local militias to select patrollers from their rosters of white men in
the region within a certain age range. In many areas, patrols were made
up of lower-class and wealthy landowning white men alike. Other areas
pulled names from lists of local landowners. Interestingly, in 18th
century South Carolina, landowning white women were included in the
potential list of names. If they were called to duty, they were given
the option to identify a male substitute to patrol in their place. The
American South relied almost exclusively on slave labor and white
Southerners lived in near constant fear of slave rebellions disrupting
this economic status quo. As a result, these patrols were one of the
earliest and most prolific forms of early policing in the South. The
responsibility of patrols was straightforward—to control the movements
and behaviors of enslaved populations. According to historian Gary
Potter, slave patrols served three main functions. “(1) to chase down,
apprehend, and return to their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a
form of organized terror to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to maintain a
form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to summary
justice, outside the law.” Throughout history, White people have felt
empowered to police Black people as an extension of the police
department.
Racist Incident –
Then starts the racist incident. A White person will say the n-word or
some other racist phrase. Listen to me, you do not wake up on a Tuesday
and have NEVER been racist in your life and decide today is the day you
will call a Black person the n-word. When a White person has an episode
like Abigail and the hundreds of other videos we have seen, they simply
reveal their true nature.
Assault
– While this is not always the case, often, these incidents become
physical. As we have seen historically and presently, White people have
murdered Black people and largely have gotten away with it. They also
think I can assault a Black person and they cannot do anything because I
can just call the police and the police will believe me. They
understand they can assault or even murder a Black person and simply
claim they felt threatened, and the chances of them getting away with it
are enormous. We saw this with the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. Ahmaud was
murdered on February 3, 2020. Travis and Gregory McMichael were not
arrested until May 7, 2020, AFTER the video of Arbery’s death went
viral. When you watch the video (approx. 2:14 mark) after the murder,
the police state they aren’t going to put Travis in handcuffs and then
say, “Why would he be in cuffs?” Ummm, because he MURDERED someone. But
Gregory knows he could ask that question because, as a White person, he
understands physical violence towards a Black person is largely okay in a
White society.
Awareness
– A White person becomes aware that they are being recorded and similar
to Abigail, they understand what can happen to them in the age of
social media and want to avoid the consequences of their racist
behavior. Understand that Black people often have no recourse except for
the recording. What you see happening across this nation is not new; it
is just that technology has caught up with the racist incidents. Many
White people would never believe a Black girl was just sitting on the
sidewalk and a White man came and choked her for not wearing a mask in
public. Many White people would not believe that Black people were just
barbecuing in a park and a White woman felt the need to call 911. These
incidents seem so outrageous that Black people understand they must be
caught on camera, and White people should know by now if you do
something racist, chances are it will be filmed.
Performance
aka White Tears – After being caught on camera now, it is time for the
performance. Here comes the screaming, crying, and theatrics. Women like
Abigail understand that the world falls at its knees when a White woman
cries, and she understands that she can weaponize her tears so that
people viewing the incident will feel sorry for her. Her goal in crying
is to get bystanders on her side. In the incident with Abigail, we see
her constantly looking around for others that will see her as a victim
and support her actions.
Victimhood–
Abigail falls to the ground screaming, understanding she can make
herself look diminutive and meek while the big, bad Black woman is
towering above her, making her fearful. Then she claims, “Don’t film me
while I am having a mental breakdown,” all while looking around so
others can “see her having a mental breakdown.” She KNOWS if she uses
those words, people will feel sorry for her, and it becomes the big, bad
Black woman terrorizing the White woman in the throes of a mental
breakdown. She must do everything she can to paint herself as the
victim.
Police Call – These
incidents often end with the White person calling 911. They understand
because their job is to police Black people in spaces, they are doing
their duty, and they know the police will show up to defend their
racism. They know the police will immediately respond to a White woman
in crisis because a Black person is involved. The job of the police is
to protect and serve White people.
Also, please understand this going
back to step 3, the police and the White person having the racist
incident caught on camera are working in tandem. In the video, you can
see the police are telling the Black woman to move as they coddle the
White woman who was the aggressor. The police essentially step in to
defend the White person.
Lying –
To add to the performance, the White person will start lying because
they understand how the policing system works for Black people. Any
White person that claims they do not know how Black people are policed
in America is lying because they KNOW all they have to do is tell 911,
“I feel threatened,” “He’s scaring me,” “He is a big tall Black guy.”
And they KNOW the police are going to show up to “rescue them.” They
weaponize their tears and Whiteness with no regard for how their lie
will be detrimental for the Black person.
Fake
Apology/Claim – Usually, this follows after the incident has gone
viral. Rarely if ever does a White person caught in these incidents
simply say, “I was racist and messed up.” They will always have an
excuse, “I didn’t take my medicine,” “I didn’t have my coffee that day,”
“I was having a mental breakdown.” “I was drinking.” And they offer an
apology with an asterisk. They never apologize for being racist. They
are apologizing because they got caught. This plays right into the White
Tears because they know White America will step in and graciously
accept an apology on behalf of Black people. “Oh, we know you didn’t
mean it, Abigail. On behalf of Black people everywhere, as White people,
we accept your apology.” Now, the person who committed the offense is
absolved, and life can continue as normal.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
This tactic works all the time and very rarely changes.
Did
I feel sorry for Abigail? NOT ONE BIT! White Tears do not move me. I
add them to my coffee every single morning. I can spot women like
Abigail a mile away because I understand the stages of White Tears. I
was hardly impressed with her mediocre high school musical theatrics. In
the police report, it states, “Miss Elphick seemed to acknowledge that
she was wrong, saying she was concerned about losing her job and
apartment if the video posted online.” That was ALWAYS her concern, not
any mental breakdown. She was focused on herself because she attacked a
Black woman. I knew what it was the minute she was fighting to conjure
up some tears. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with Abigail. She is an
entitled White woman that knows how to play her role in America.
Period.
(I
will be following up with part II for this blog because there is an
aspect of this video that I must point out: the White bystanders that
stood by until they spoke up for Abigail.)
Understanding The Stages of White Tears Part II- The White Bystander
BY HANNAHDRAKE628 ON JULY 19, 2021 • ( 1 COMMENT )
Disclaimer:
Before I get into this blog, this is not about placing yourself or your
loved ones in any danger. Please note, many of these incidents do not
involve someone using a physical weapon but instead using tears and
Whiteness as a weapon which can become deadly for the Black person
involved in the incident.
Last
week I wrote Understanding The Stages of White Tears, highlighting
Abigail Elphick and her encounter and strategic performance with Ijeoma
Ukenta at Short Hills Mall. We see Abigail screaming, fake crying,
chasing Ijeoma, and writhing on the floor during the video, all before
calling 911. These actions are a performance to avoid the repercussions
that typically come once these videos go viral. (You can read about the
stages here.) While many people focus on Abigail, and rightly so, there
is another aspect of this video that I must point out – the White
Bystander.
Understanding
the phases, we immediately see Abigail, although claiming she is having
a mental breakdown, constantly looking around for others to support her
behavior. At the 1:34 mark, she asks, “Why aren’t you guys defending
me?” She is doing her best to put on a stellar performance, and she is
expecting the bystanders to come to her defense. Within minutes (approx.
2:07) in steps, the first bystander telling Ijeoma, “Why don’t you step
away from her?”
You
can see Abigail move her performance closer to the bystander because
she knows the White woman has taken the bait. If you watch the video
from the beginning, you can see the bystander has been watching this
entire incident unfold but immediately doesn’t address Abigail but
addresses the Black woman. She puts the ownness on the Black woman to
move away from Abigail when Abigail is the one creating the problem. The
Black woman is no threat to Abigail; in fact, Abigail is the one that
tried to assault her and is chasing her throughout the store.
After
passing out and writhing on the floor didn’t work, now Abigail must
take it up a notch and continues to yell, “Get her away from me!” when
she is the one chasing the Black woman around. She now finds Bystander
#2, who asks her, “Are you by yourself?” Bystander #2 has bought into
the act. Something must be wrong with Abigail. Is she here alone? Does
she have help? At the outset, it looked like Bystander #2 was going to
do the right thing, but she fails to see that she has already become
complicit in Abigail’s performance. Bystander #2 turns to Iejoma and
says, “Just put the phone down. She’s sick.” Once again, putting the
ownness on Ijeoma. Abigail is not sick. There is nothing wrong with
Abigail; she just wants to avoid the consequences of her behavior.
Please understand, Black women are not responsible for the bad behavior
of White women. It is not our responsibility to make White women feel
better about abusing us. It is not our responsibility to make the abuse
of Black women more acceptable because a White woman is crying. It is
not our responsibility to understand a White woman is having a bad day
so she is allowed to verbally and physically assault Black women.
What
many need to understand in these incidents, the bystanders are a part
of the performance. Abigail knows to sell the drama, she must get others
on her side, which is why she is constantly looking around, even
demanding, “Why aren’t you defending me?!” The reason Abigail knows this
will work is because she knows that White women identify with her. They
do not see Ijeoma, a Black woman, as someone that can be threatened or a
victim. Because Abigail is a White woman, they see her as someone that
could be their mom, sister, aunt, or daughter. They see Abigail as
someone that can be the victim because, in Abigail, they see themselves.
They never recognize what is happening to Ijeoma. In fact, they do not
even see Iejoma. However, if a Black woman were chasing a White woman
around a store, no one would coddle her because they inherently see
Black women as aggressors. One of the first steps in dealing with these
incidents is asking yourself, “How am I seeing this situation, and is my
bias preventing me from seeing this Black person as a victim?”
In
another article, Dear White Women, Get Your Friends, I challenged White
people to ask themselves, “If a White person was doing this, would I
call 911?” If a White person I did not know was walking down my
sidewalk, would I call 911? If a White person was moving into my
community and I was unsure who they were, would I call 911? If a White
person didn’t wave to me as they exited an Air B-N-B would I call 911?
If a White person was in the swimming pool and I wasn’t sure they lived
in the apartment complex, would I call 911? More than likely, the answer
is no. So, the actions aren’t the problem. It is how you perceive Black
people, which makes everyday, mundane activities seem sinister to White
people. It has NOTHING to do with the actions; it’s the race of the
person doing them. That is what White people must face, and that
requires going inwardly and seeing some things in yourself that you may
not be ready to face.
After
you check your bias, affirm the Black person. These actions seem so
outrageous that often even the Black person cannot believe it is
happening. In the video, Iejoma says, “This does not feel real.” Let the
Black person know, “I see what is happening to you, and it is real.”
Then
do not feed into Abigail’s actions. That is how these incidents thrive.
Abigail needs the audience because it will make what she is doing more
believable. Do not indulge women like Abigail. Abigail is not the
victim. Be crystal clear to her that you see and understand that the
Black person is the victim. After affirming the Black person,
immediately step in and firmly tell Abigail to stop. “Stop it. Your
performance is not working.” You must be firm and direct. “What you are
doing to this Black person is wrong. It is racist, and actions like
yours have led to the death of many Black people. Stop it.” It is not
enough to just say stop. Do not offer them any excuses. Do not say, “I
know you’re having a bad day, or I know it’s tough out here, etc.” It is
imperative you let them know that you are aware that their actions are
rooted in racism. They know this; however, what will shock them is that
you know this. The jig is up. This will stun women like Abigail because
they know White people are typically on their side even when they are
wrong, even when they are doing something blatantly racist. Inherently
they believe, White people are supposed to defend White people by any
means necessary. They will not be ready for another White person to
support a Black person. But hold firm.
After
you defend the Black person and tell women like Abigail to stop, expect
more anger and theatrics. However, it is not time to indulge, it is not
time to soothe; it is time to speak the truth. This will probably lead
to more tears and theatrics, but remember, this is all part of the
performance. The fact that you have seen beyond their mask is shocking
for them, and they will start the performance of a lifetime and will
probably lash out in anger. “How dare you defend them. Don’t you see
what they are doing?” More than likely, women that behave like this,
have never had a White person firmly tell them the truth, and we often
know the truth angers people who are not ready to accept and deal with
the truth.
Hopefully,
following these steps will deescalate the situation. However, do not
leave the incident. As I stated in Understanding the Stages of White
Tears, these incidents will often end with a call to the police. It is
imperative that you stay at the scene to give a complete account when
the police arrive. We witnessed the lies in this video, “She’s
threatening me,” when not one threat was heard. Yet, women like Abigail
will hold on to the performance and the lies in a last-ditch effort to
get someone on their side which is often the police. Because they cannot
get you to side with them, they know the police are there to protect
and serve White people, and the police will believe them. It is rare
that the police step in and defend the Black person. In these videos of
Abigail and Iejoma, no one stayed to defend Ijeoma. The officers spoke
with Abigail, comforted Abigail, told Ijeoma to move, and largely
dismissed the Black woman. Stay and give a complete account because the
Black person will need witnesses.
As
we continue to see these videos across the nation, know that this ONLY
stops when White people step in to stop it. Black people alone cannot
end this because Black people did not create this. These are not just
White women having a tantrum. These incidents are rooted in centuries of
racism. I understand that it often takes courage to step up when these
incidents occur. However, know that you having the courage to say
something is one of the first steps to ending this behavior.
When Police Lies go Unchecked Difficult Questions Arise
July 7, 2021
WHEN POLICE LIES GO UNCHECKED DIFFICULT QUESTIONS ARISE. CLINTON ELLISON HAS ONE FOR THE RCMP by Paul Palango
No one who saw it on television could likely ever forget the
interview by the CBC’s Brett Ruskin with Clinton Ellison conducted at the top of Portapique
Beach Road, a few days after the dual
massacres that left 22 Nova Scotians dead on the weekend of April 18 and 19, 2020.
The teary eyed and grieving Ellison talked
about how he had stumbled upon the body of his dead brother, Corrie, ran
from what he thought was gunman Gabriel Wortman and hid in the woods for almost four hours cowering in fear for his
life.
Months later, Ellison went on Facebook and
laid out his pain for everyone to see, apologizing abjectly to the RCMP for any
suggestion that he might have said something critical about them. He believed
in the police, he said, and later added that he had faith in the Mass Casualty
Commission to get to the truth when it finally begins hearings sometime in the
fall.
Ellison does not talk to the media and has
not responded to my efforts to contact him. Now, there is another twist which
has sent Ellison into a tortured spin again.
It arrived in a sworn affidavit by RCMP Superintendent Darren Campbell as part of the force’s statement of defense to a class-action claim
mounted by lawyers Robert Pineo and Sandra McCulloch on behalf of the families of the 22 murder victims.
The RCMP were forced by a judge to produce
the statement of defense, which it did on June 3. The Mounties appeared to have
been ragging the puck, as it were, perhaps hoping that everyone would forget
what the RCMP did and didn’t do that terrible weekend.
In his affidavit, which was made public on
June 15, Campbell attempts to lay out a series of scenarios which appear to
show that the RCMP was much more proactive in Portapique
that night than it or anyone else had indicated in the intervening 14 months.
For example, Campbell said, first Mounties
arrived in Portapique at 10:26 p.m. Two eventually made their way on foot into
the community “pursuant to their Immediate Action Rapid
Deployment training,” and were soon joined by
a third.
Campbell didn’t describe precisely where
the officers went other to say that at 10:41 p.m. they discovered a burning
white Ford Taurus decommissioned police car next to a burning building. He doesn’t
say whether the building was Wortman’s cottage at 200 Portapique Beach Road or
his warehouse/man den at 136 Orchard Beach Drive.
By 10:45 p.m., Campbell said that there
were five Mounties at Portapique Beach, and seven more en route, but not there
yet.
In paragraphs 17 and 18 of the statement of
defense, Campbell stated: “At about 10:49 p.m., the RCMP members who had formed
the IARD team discovered a deceased victim on Orchard Beach Drive in
Portapique. Shortly thereafter the IARD RCMP members saw someone approaching in
the darkness carrying a flashlight. When the RCMP members prepared to engage
the individual, who they suspected might have been responsible for the fires
and gunshots, the individual turned off the light and ran into the woods. A
second deceased victim was located shortly afterward.”
The first body the Mounties said they found
was that of 42-year-old Corrie Ellison. Corrie and Clinton had been visiting
their father, Richard, who owned a property several hundred metres south of Wortman’s
property at 136 Orchard Beach Drive. Corrie had gone up the road to check out
the source of flames, which were emanating from the warehouse. He was taking
photographs of the fire when he was shot.
When Clinton went to investigate why Corrie
had not come home, he found his brother’s body. He said that as he ran back
toward his father’s place, someone with a flashlight was behind him, presumably
Wortman. He ended up hiding in the woods off Orchard Beach Drive for four hours
until rescued by RCMP ERT members just before 3 a.m.
The second body found was that of
elementary school teacher Lisa McCully who was shot dead on her front lawn across the road from where
Ellison was killed. In the basement of her house, her 12-year-old daughter and
the 12-year-old son of murder victim Greg and Jamie Blair were hiding in the basement on the phone with the RCMP.
According to 911 calls obtained by Frank, about a
half hour earlier they had told the Mounties that they feared for their two
10-year-old brothers who had left the house and were outside somewhere.
Campbell’s claim, as reported by Nicole Munro
in the Halifax Chronicle Herald, that the Mounties had found Corrie Ellison at 10:49 p.m. caught
Clinton Ellison’s attention and raised his suspicions. He has always wanted to
believe the Mounties, but their claim that they were there at 10:49 p.m. didn’t
seem right to him. He posted this on social media:
Did the RCMP kill my brother? That’s a
seriously loaded question. Ellison’s suspicion, as difficult as it might be for
some to accept, has a solid foundation and is worthy of a deeper investigation.
On the surface the RCMP version of events
meshes with Ellison’s original story. He thought he was being chased by Gabriel
Wortman and ended up hiding in the woods until he was rescued shortly after
2:30 a.m. If Campbell is to be believed, then it was the Mounties who were
stalking Ellison with a flashlight.
Really?
Why would they be doing that when the
flashlight would make them targets for the very gunman they were trying to
find?
Another potential problem for the RCMP
story can be found in the communications from the Pictou County Public Safety Channel archived on Broadcastify.
Staff Sgt. Andy O’Brien was captured saying this: “Clinton Ellison called us at 22:59 or
the father called us at 22:59 indicating that his other son, Corrie Ellison was
shot…. We’re trying to related back to where the other son is. We understand that
he could be in the woods hiding out somewhere.”
Clinton said in his post: “My brother
wasn’t gone long enough… Minutes. Gabriel and the RCMP would have had to have
been there at the same time.
”Ellison’s timing issue is one that demands
closer examination. Clinton left his father Richard’s place and walked up the
dirt and stone road several hundred metres toward Wortman’s burning warehouse.
That would have taken him several minutes.
If
the RCMP found Corrie Ellison’s body at 10:49 p.m. or 22:49, one would expect
that they would linger in place for a few minutes at least. The Mounties said
they saw someone approaching with a flashlight whom they suspected was the
killer. If so, why didn’t they confront him?
Ellison managed to get to where his brother
lay dead and identify him before running away back to the south. It would have
taken him a couple of minutes to find a hiding place. He was reluctant to make
any noise but eventually called his father, told him what was happening and
asked him to call 911, which Richard Ellison did at 22:59.
What were the Mounties supposedly doing
during those 10 minutes? Campbell said that the Mounties then discovered the
body of McCully.
The Mounties knew that the children were in
the basement and that two 10-year olds were running around the property. They
did not go into the house or appear to have searched for the children. Instead,
they retreated. That’s not normal police procedure.
Did all of this happen as Campbell stated?
It might have, but there’s a further problem – communications records from the Pictou County Tapes, as we've taken to calling them, the contents of which were first
reported by Frank in January.
After the children in McCully’s basement
were finally rescued at around 1 a.m., some Mounties were left to “hunker down”
around the property, waiting for a ride out from the RCMP ERT to the highway,
At 1:50 a.m., another Mountie did an initial, quick examination of a body
believed to be Corrie Ellison’s.
“Hotel
One to risk manager.”“Go Hotel One,” said risk
manager Staff Sgt. Brian Rehill who was located at the makeshift command centre at the Great Village
firehall, about a seven minute drive away.
“The father of these two (garbled) … they
approached (garbled) to check out the fire…. He shot one of them in the head.
It’s a 40-calibre Smith and Wesson.
”According to the Pictou County Safety
Channel recordings, RCMP ERT members reported finding the bodies of Ellison and
McCully shortly after 3 a.m. – more than four hours after Campbell said that
happened.
“Oscar
Charlie, Hotel One… We’ve just stopped here on
the road, ah, we’re going to do a quick vitals on this deceased person on the
side of the road just to make sure he’s deceased and not still alive.
”It was more than four and a half hours
after RCMP received the first call that something was amiss in Portapique. The
ERT officer, going by the callsign Hotel One, is addressing Staff-Sgt. Jeff West (Oscar Charlie), the long time head of traffic services for the
RCMP in N.S. who was in command on the scene.
“Yah, confirmed, deceased,” the Mountie
said of Corrie Ellison, 34 seconds later. “What road was that on, Jim,” a
Mountie believed to be West asked. Jim didn’t know. There are only three main
roads in the survey and a couple of side roads but the Mounties were having
extreme difficulty finding their way throughout the night.
Since he couldn’t describe where the body was,
the Mountie marked it with GPS co-ordinates.“N 45.397153,” Jim said. ”W
063.703527.”
The Mountie then walked across the road to
where Lisa McCully’s body was lying on the front lawn. In earlier conversations
the ERT members acknowledged that the first call to 911 came from “the
teacher’s house” which they were now standing in front of.
At 3:04 a.m., the Mountie reported to
control: “Going to do a second vital on a second body out by the fence … over
by the other body.”“Okay,” the supervisor said. “Oscar Charlie copy.”
Thirty-six seconds later, the Mountie announced the coordinates “for the second
body”.
Uncomfortable questions
Around 9:30 a.m., Judy and Doug Myers left
their property on Orchard Beach Road and came across Ellison and McCully’s
bodies lying under yellow tarps. There were no Mounties to be seen.
In light of Campbell’s affidavit,
uncomfortable questions abound about what really transpired between 10:49 p.m.
and 10:59 p.m. or so on Orchard Beach Drive during the previous night.
Normally, the word of the police would never be questioned on something like
this, but as we all know this is long past a normal situation.
The Mounties have been caught lying so many
times that their credibility is shredded, but like Donald Trump
they continue to charge on, gaslighting the public.
The list of RCMP lies and deceptions on the
Portapique file is staggering.
Original reports said there was a party
that went sour and that an aggrieved Wortman came back to the party house and
killed a bunch of people. There were reports of bodies strewn around a house
and in the yard. There was no such party or scene.
The RCMP said there was a virtual party
with an unnamed couple from Maine, who made an innocuous comment which set off Wortman and his common
law wife Lisa Banfield. The RCMP’s own court documents quote an FBI agent as
saying on April 21 that he could find no evidence of such a party.
The RCMP said Lisa Banfield spent the night
in the woods, barefoot and without winter clothes, snuggled up in a tree root
system. She never got herself dirty and she didn’t lose any fingers or toes.
Science says that likely didn’t happen. Furthermore, the RCMP’s own court
documents stated that Banfield’s injuries were “minor.”
In his affidavit Campbell said the RCMP
called the Department of National
Defense to borrow a helicopter. Didn’t happen,
the DND told Global News.
Next is the curious evacuations of Alan and Joanne Griffon
and their ex-con drug trafficker son, Peter, between 11:30 p.m. and midnight from their house at the bottom of
Portapique Beach Road. They were among the handful of residents evacuated. Most
were not.
Early reports said they were escorted out
of the community, which suggested that they drove their own vehicles. A new
source says that’s not the case.
“They were taken out in a police vehicle
and dropped off where someone they knew could pick them up,” said the source. Like
so many people involved on all sides of this story, the Griffons are not
talking to the media.
This new information about how the Griffons
got out of Portapique seems to mesh with what previously were described as
“wild rumours.” In those so-called rumours, the Griffons were not alone in the
vehicle. Another passenger was reported
to be Wortman’s common law wife Lisa Banfield, but no one will confirm that
one, either.
Then there are the big ones that were
revealed by our secret source, True Blue.
On the day before Campbell swore his
affidavit, Frank released 911 tapes from three callers at Portapique each of
whom described Wortman, dressed as a
Mountie and driving a RCMP cruiser while killing people.
The RCMP spent 14 months promoting the
narrative that it did not know Wortman was dressed as a Mountie and had a
replica police car until they were told by Lisa Banfield after she came out of
the woods at 6:34 a.m. that morning.
True Blue also provided Frank with video
tape which disputed the version of events as earlier described by both the RCMP
and by Felix Cacchione, director of the Serious Incident Response
Team.
The videos clearly show that Wortman was
first seen by Mounties at the Petro Canada station in Elmsdale, before being shot by two ERT members at the Irving Big Stop about five minutes later.
As you might remember, two highly
experienced police officers who viewed the tapes told Frank the shooting of
Wortman looked like an execution to them.
The two officers who shot at and missed a
RCMP officer and Emergency Measures
Organization worker at the Onslow-Belmont
firehall acted as if they were carrying out a shoot-on-sight order. They made
no attempt to identify their target.
Cacchione declared that it was all above
board.We could go on – and will, eventually – but the point is that Clinton
Ellison is right to question Supt. Campbell’s narrative. If there was a
shoot-on-sight order issued by someone in the RCMP, when did that happen?
Was it before the Irving Big Stop?
Was it before the Onslow-Belmont firehall
incident?
Or was it ordered soon after the first
calls came in to 911 at 10 p.m., 10:16 p.m. and 10:26 p.m. from Jamie Blair,
her son, and Andrew MacDonald.
These are important details that can’t be
ignored.The RCMP have called in the Ontario
Provincial Police to investigate the 911 leaks
on which the Mounties were caught lying about what they knew and when they knew
it. The RCMP can’t be trusted to investigate themselves any longer. We need an
independent police investigation to get to the bottom of all this. Call in the
OPP to do that. The Surête du Quêbec. Toronto Police. Someone honest. Please.The big proven problem, however, is that
Nova Scotia and federal politicians, bureaucrats, most journalists and the
Felix Cacchiones of the world seem transfixed by the perpetual musical ride
that the dysfunctional and treacherous RCMP is taking us on, rather than deal
with substantive issues like truth, integrity, justice and accountability.
Did the RCMP execute Gabriel Wortman? Leaked gas station security tapes cast doubt on SIRT report
By Paul Palango
Security
tapes from two service stations obtained by Frank Magazine that depict
the last few minutes of Gabriel Wortman’s life and his shooting by two
RCMP officers appear to contradict findings made by the police oversight
body known by its acronym SIRT.
Copies of the tapes were provided to Frank by a source we’ve dubbed True Blue.
In
the first tape, Wortman is seen standing beside a Mazda 3 next to a gas
pump at the Petro Canada station, on the west side of Exit 8 on Highway
102. Wortman had stolen the vehicle after murdering Gina Goulet, his
22nd and last victim minutes earlier at her home/office on Highway 224
in Shubenacadie.
After killing
fellow denturist Goulet, Wortman loaded the guns, ammunitions and other
items into the backseat of Goulet’s car. When he drove away, however,
he must have noticed that her car was running on empty. Goulet was
notorious for driving her car down to the fumes before adding more gas.
A security tape shows Gabriel Wortman and an unidentified RCMP ERT member. (credit: True Blue)
When
he arrived at the Petro Canada station, Wortman pulled into the wrong
service lane. He is shown unsuccessfully trying to stretch the filling
hose over the car to reach the fuel door.
A
black RCMP vehicle is at the bay right next to Wortman. We can’t see
him yet, but an RCMP officer is standing on the other side of the pump,
fuelling up just a few feet away from Wortman.
Wortman
wasn’t wearing the same clothing or driving a Chevy Tracker as
described in the most recent RCMP Tweets from that morning. In fact, he
was never driving a Chevy Tracker, but rather a Ford Escape. The
erroneous description was given to the RCMP by a witness at the
cloverleaf traffic circle in Shubenacadie, where Constable Heidi
Stevenson and Good Samaritan Joey Webber had been killed by Wortman.
Wortman escaped in Webber’s Ford Escape.
According
to True Blue, Wortman drove for about one kilometre to Goulet’s house,
broke through a glass door window and cut his arm in the process. He
shot Goulet’s protective German Shepherd, Ginger, twice. Wortman dripped
blood through the house before smashing down a bathroom door and
shooting Goulet. He changed out of the RCMP clothing that he had been
wearing into pants and a white t-shirt.
Back
at the Petro Canada station in Elmsdale, a Mountie dressed in tactical
gear appears at the rear of the RCMP vehicle, just as Wortman places the
gas nozzle back on the pump and gets back in the car. The Mountie was
obviously curious about Wortman, who had a contusion on his forehead,
likely as a result of the crash with Stevenson.
Wortman
then wheels away to a pump in the next bay, where he pulls up and sits
in the car for a few seconds. By now, he may or may not have realized
that the pumps had been shut down by the police at the gas stations on
either side of the highway as part of a lockdown. In a few frames of the
video, the two tennis balls impaled on the rear roof antenna of
Goulet’s car are evident.
Meanwhile,
the curious Mountie was still eyeballing Wortman while turning to talk
to his partner, who we now have a partial view of as well. As for the
other Mountie who is clearly in view, his attention is clearly trained
on the bald man in the Mazda 3.
During
the final few seconds of the 28 second clip, we have a partial view of a
third Mountie standing near the front of the RCMP vehicle.
Without getting out of the Mazda 3, Wortman drove away and headed back into the southbound lanes of Highway 103.
‘I was right behind them’
Halifax Chronicle Herald photographer Tim Krochak was close on the tail of RCMP vehicles that followed Wortman to Enfield.
“I
was near Stewiacke, and I hear on the radio that Wortman was last seen
in the Brookfield area.
That’s, like, the next exit. Right then over in
the southbound lane I can see a convoy of eight RCMP cars and an
armoured car heading south toward Halifax. I turned around and started
following them as fast as I could.”
Krochak then got another call from another photographer: “Dude, it’s going down in Shubenacadie.”
“As
we got near Shubie, there was a fire call for two RCMP cars burning. I
could see a tall thing of smoke from the highway, but the convoy didn’t
go that way. They drove right past Shubie and they all got off at Exit 8
in Elmsdale. They pulled up at the Superstore (near the Petro Canada
station). I was right behind them. A couple of them got out of the car
and started talking. I couldn’t see what was going on at the pumps. Then
they ran back to their vehicles. I got the sense that they thought they
had gone to the wrong place. They got back on the highway and headed
toward Halifax.”
The scene in Enfield on April 19. (Tim Krochak/Herald/CP)
The
Irving Big Stop at Enfield was 7.7 kilometres away, about a four-minute
drive at normal speeds. The convoy was right behind Wortman. They had
him in their sights.
Early on in
the investigation a blurry photo was released purportedly showing
Wortman passing a government of Nova Scotia inspection station. The RCMP
said the time was 11:23 a.m., although the clock read otherwise. From
that location, it would have taken Wortman at least 90 seconds to get to
the Big Stop and pull up to the pump.
Security tapes capture the takedown. (credit: True Blue)
The
first security camera video clip from the Big Stop shows a
cream-coloured, RCMP Chevrolet
Suburban pull up on the other side of the
pump where Wortman is sitting inside his vehicle. The driver, dressed
in tactical gear, opens the door almost immediately, takes a shooting
position and opens fire on Wortman through the front-passenger glass,
causing the glass to explode.
We also see a second officer taking a position near the front of the car.
(credit: True Blue)
In
the second and third Big Stop clips – different security camera angles
-- Wortman can be seeing leaning across the seats and possibly into the
back seat, where rifles were laying under a crocheted blanket. It’s not
clear whether Wortman was reaching for a gun or ducking for cover. In
all there were 10 bullets holes in the windshield – all on the passenger
side of the car.
The time stamp of the overhead security camera view reads 11:25 when the shooting starts.
The backseat of Gina Goulet's Mazda 3. (credit: True Blue)
An
accompanying photo provided by True Blue showed ammunition scattered on
the front passenger seat of the car and a plastic jug of milk, less
than half-full.
A synopsis of
the autopsy, also provided by True Blue, showed that Wortman had bullet
wounds to the head, arms, neck and torso. A total number of shots is not
recorded.
The report also said
that Wortman had blunt injuries to the head, various bruises and
abrasions, had an enlarged heart and a spot on his lung.
‘They just executed him’
Two highly experienced police officers who reviewed the shootings each voiced their concerns about what exactly happened.
“It
appears that the Mounties made no attempt to arrest him,” said a former
high-ranking Mountie. “They appeared to know exactly who he was when
they pulled up and they simply executed him. You can see why they don’t
want people to see that. It raises all kinds of questions about what was
really going on.”
The second policeman said that in his view this was what police manuals refer to as “a barricaded suspect.”
“They
had overwhelming numbers at the scene,” the former officer said. “It
would have been no problem for them to box him in. He was going nowhere.
They made no attempt to negotiate. There is an entire protocol for
barricaded suspects. They didn’t do that. They just executed him. That
might have made a lot of people happy, but it wasn’t right. It’s as if
they had a do not apprehend, shoot-on-sight order.”
The
information contained in the videos confirms what eyewitnesses saw and
posted on social media at the time of Wortman’s shooting.
The front seat of the Mazda 3. (credit: True Blue)
Witness
Glen Hines was driving by the Big Stop with his wife and was one of the
first witnesses to go before television cameras. “I just happened to
drive by the Irving and I seen this Swat team come in and park beside
the pumps and the fellow got out of the passenger side and he just went
right out in front of the car with his gun and just opened up right
through the windshield of the car. All I could hear was gunshots,” Hines
told CTV News.
Halifax resident Alex Fox was there, too. He posted this on his Facebook page:
…
By the time I got to the Big Stop in Enfield I was still pretty cold. I
decided to stop there and use the ATM to get cash out in order to pay
for the work I was having done. After I used the ATM I stopped near the
front doors to warm my hands up for a minute and put away my wallet.
When I walked out the front door the parking lot and pumps were mostly
deserted. There was only a small silver car at the pumps across from my
motorcycle. As I’m walking along the sidewalk to my bike, a white truck
pulls up at high speed to the opposite side of the gas pump from the car
and two men in green tactical gear (thought they were soldiers at the
time) got out and aim assault rifles at the car. They shout something
like “Show us your hands!” There’s a brief pause before they both open
fire on the vehicle from close range. (I later read they shot ten times
which I would believe). I am roughly parallel to this entire event and
about 60’ away according to Google Earth.
Summary of the findings of Gabriel Wortman's autopsy (credit: True Blue)
The
investigation by SIRT, the Serious Incident Response Team, was supposed
to take three months but Director Felix Cacchione did not deliver a
report until December 15, 2020. As you shall see, Cacchione makes no
mention of most of this, including the eyewitnesses.
The
following paragraphs are taken directly from Cacchione’s thin final
report. I have substituted Wortman for the acronym AP (Affected Person)
used by Cacchione.
Compare the video information and other reporting above to what Cacchione wrote:
“…
Wortman then set fire to both the RCMP officer's police vehicle and the
mock police vehicle he had been driving and drove away in the
civilian's Chevrolet Tracker.
Unbeknown
to the police, Wortman then drove a short distance to the residence of
an acquaintance where he entered the residence and killed the
acquaintance. Wortman then changed out of the RCMP clothing he had been
wearing and into civilian clothes. Wortman then drove away in his latest
victim's grey Mazda 3 vehicle leaving behind the Chevrolet Tracker and
the discarded RCMP clothing.
Wortman
was headed toward Halifax-Dartmouth when he stopped for gas at the
Irving Big Stop in Enfield. SO1 (1st Mountie) and SO2 (2nd Mountie) were
travelling together and unaware that Wortman was no longer driving the
Chevrolet vehicle when they pulled in to refuel at the same Irving Big
Stop. SO1 was driving the police vehicle and stopped at a pump adjacent
to a pump where a grey Mazda 3 vehicle was parked. SO1 exited the
vehicle to begin re-fueling and as he looked across to the adjoining
pump he observed a male with a noticeable hematoma and some blood on his
forehead.
SO1 recognized this
person as Wortman from photographs he had seen at the command post. SO1
drew his service weapon and alerted S02 that the AP was in the vehicle
parked next to theirs. SO2, a member of the Emergency Response Team,
left the vehicle and moved across the front of the police vehicle. The
AP then raised the pistol he had stolen from the RCMP officer he killed
approximately 30 minutes earlier. SO1 and SO2 then began firing their
service weapons. The AP died at the scene.”
Cacchione’s
eight-month long “investigation” failed to detect the incident at the
Petro Canada station in Elmsdale and appears to misrepresents what we
see on the tapes.
Frank sent a list of questions to SIRT before this article went to press:
1. Did you have access to security tapes to the Petro Canada in Elmsdale?
2. Did you interview RCMP ERT members who gathered in Elmsdale shortly after Wortman left about what they saw?
3.
Security tapes at the Irving Big Stop in Enfield show that within five
seconds of SO1 and SO2 pulling up to the pump, they were firing on
Wortman, as he sat in the Mazda 3. Please explain why you chose to
believe S01 and SO2, when they said they didn't know Wortman was in the
Mazda 3. Please also explain why you either didn't interview several
eyewitnesses on the scene, or chose to discount their evidence.
4.
Officers we've talked to, who have viewed the tapes, believe that
Gabriel Wortman was unlawfully executed by the RCMP. Do you agree that's
what it looks like on the Enfield Big Stop tapes? Please share with us
what evidence you had that led you to believe this was a lawful
takedown, and not a calculated execution.
5.
If you had access to the security tapes at the Petro Canada in
Elmsdale, did you purposely conflate the encounters in Elmsdale and
Enfield for the purposes of your report? If so, why?
SIRT did not respond to those questions before this article was published on frankmagazine.ca.
RCMP spin team leaks ‘the inside story’…
When
the SIRT report hit the streets, the RCMP spin team then went into
action, “accidentally” leaving the name of dog handler Constable Craig
Hubley uncovered long enough for Halifax Chronicle Herald reporter Chris
Lambie to stumble into, as the headline put it: “The inside story of
how an RCMP dog handler shot N.S. mass murderer.”
Lambie
quoted an unidentified “police source” as describing Hubley as a “hard
worker, diligent, tactically sound, committed and probably one of the
best dog handlers that I know.”
Lambie went on to write:
Hubley
recognized the mass killer, who was exhibiting “the 1,000-yard stare”
as he gassed up within a few metres of the Mounties at the Irving Big
Stop, said the source.
“He
stops to get fuel in his dog truck and he has the wherewithal to be
standing there watching his surroundings and he sees the guy,” said the
police source.
“They spotted
him and their training immediately kicked in and they challenged the
guy. And boom, they’re heroes. They stopped the man who killed 22
people, including one of their own….”
The
mass murderer appeared to be “making a threatening move,” when the two
officers shot him, said the source. “They were concerned for their
safety.”
Hubley’s observation skills are unique, said the source.
“A
lot of people wouldn’t have spotted him, and he would have slipped away
and gone on killing,” the source said of the dog handler’s
observational skills.
“That
alone speaks volumes to the kind of officer he is. He’s smart. He’s just
switched on, to use one of our phrases. He’s just squared away. He’s
got a big police brain.”
The front passenger side window of the Mazda 3 (credit: True Blue)
The
gas station tapes, once again, show that the RCMP, the Crown and
governments have been playing fast and loose with the facts since last
April.
A final note: In January
of this year, Goulet’s bullet riddled car was towed to Andrew
MacDonald’s Maritime Auto Salvage in Glenholme and destroyed. MacDonald,
as you may recall, was wounded by Wortman outside Frank and Dawn
Gulenchyn’s burning house that fateful Saturday night.
On the one-year anniversary of the Nova Scotia massacre, The Globe and Mail published a feature that
repeatedly described those questioning authorities’ official narrative
of the events of April 18–19, 2020, as conspiracy theorists. And in a
way, this was accurate: such skeptics regard the RCMP’s response to the
killer’s 13-hour rampage across a significant swath of the province as
having been so catastrophically inadequate that something other than, or
in addition to, unfathomable ineptitude must have been at play.
Paul Palango, who until 1990 was a senior editor at the Globe,
is among them. In the decades since leaving the paper, he has authored
three books about Canada’s national police force. And over the past
year, he has repeatedly uncovereddetails about the massacre that, at the very least, raise inconvenient new questions for which there have yet to be any satisfying answers.
Last week, he published a bombshell in Halifax’s Frank Magazine:
audio and transcripts of 911 calls placed shortly after the start of
the incident by three separate people (one of whom was killed moments
later), who all described the killer as driving what appeared to be an
RCMP vehicle — a crucial fact the Mounties maintained they didn’t first
learn until many hours (and many deaths) later.
The backlash to this scoop was swift and fierce — but it was largely against Frank
itself, a notorious tabloid in every respect other than its physical
dimensions, known for what could charitably be described as its vigorouspunchingdownagainstthosewhochallengethestatusquo. (The Halifax Frank is a separate publication from its better-known Ottawa “cousin,”which has been under distinct ownership since the late 1990s; the Ottawa one, however, did republish this “exclusive.”)
On this week’s CANADALAND, Jesse Brown speaks to Palango about his reporting and to Frank managing editor Andrew Douglas about the decision to publish the recordings and the response they’ve received.
Below is a condensed and edited version of his conversation with Palango:
Your bombshell story proves that the RCMP has been lying. Why do you think they’re lying?
Well, from the outset, I’ve seen this as a cover-up, because I’m
informed by the stuff I’ve written and investigated for the last 25
years. I recognized it as soon as it started. I’ve been told by
confidential informants along the way that they’re covering up things.
I’ve been treated as a conspiracy theorist by most of the media and some
of the public. But slowly but surely, I’m sort of unravelling this
coverup. Whatever it is, we don’t know. But there’s something big
they’re hiding.
There’s
a pretty obvious explanation, isn’t there? Why are the cops lying about
when they first knew that Gabriel Wortman was impersonating an RCMP
officer? Because they fucked up. Maybe the 911 operators didn’t really
make much of that detail, or maybe, if they did pass it on, the RCMP
were embarrassed to tell people.
There’s something else going on. If you accept that they’re just trying
to cover up this initial mistake and they’re embarrassed, well, that
doesn’t fit with everything else in the story that has been sort of
swept under the rug.
Like what?
Well, that doesn’t explain why they didn’t attack the scene, why they
lied about it at the beginning. They said, “Oh, we were down there
sweeping, we did this, this, cleared people out of the house.” They
didn’t go down for three hours to rescue those kids. They didn’t go on
to that road where 11 people were murdered till the next day, but they
pretended they were doing something else. They didn’t set up any
roadblocks, even when they knew he was active and in a police car. They
never did anything to get in front of him. So how do you explain that?
You know, the whole reliance on Wortman’s girlfriend’s improbable, hoary
story that she came out of the woods at 6:30 in the morning, and then
she told them he’s in a police car. Why are they accepting that story?
Why are you having trouble buying the official RCMP line about his common-law partner spending the night in the woods?
You got to realize it was zero degrees out. She was dressed in a spandex
top, yoga pants, no shoes and socks. No gloves, no coat, no hat,
nothing. She says she was outside for eight and a half hours and hid in a
tree hollow, or the root of a trunk, in the forest. Well, you’re
barefoot; the forest there is just covered with rocks and moss. I could
find no trees that she would fit in. How would you find that tree in the
dark? She had all her fingers and toes at the end. She says she and
Wortman had a virtual party the night before to celebrate their 19th
anniversary and that people on the other end of the line in Maine made a
comment that [set him off]. Well, deep down in one of the court
documents released recently, there’s one paragraph that states an FBI
officer in Maine went and checked all that out and could find no proof
of a virtual party.
The speculation has been that Wortman was anRCMP informant,
largely based on a large cash withdrawal he made at a Brink’s outlet,
which is consistent with how RCMP informants have been paid in the past.
And because he’d had a traffic violation that makes no sense to a lot
of people based on where it happened. Those are the two points that I’m
aware of lending to this theory that he was working with the RCMP, but
they’re hardly conclusive.
Early on, the police put out a search warrant, and they blacked out one
word: they said they were seeking guns, ammunition, chemicals, and
something blacked out. The blacked-out thing was grenades. There’s a
witness who told the police that Wortman had two cases of grenades that
he smuggled from the United States. Well, who has grenades? Who uses
grenades in this day and age? Why would a denturist have grenades? And
if you look at the search warrants in outlaw biker investigations in the
region, one of the things they’re looking for are grenades. So why
would Wortman allegedly have two cases of grenades, and they’re looking
for bikers having grenades? That suggests to me that there’s something
else going on here.
The commission that’s supposed to be looking into this has denounced you for revealing the truth about the RCMP lie.
Everyone has argued from the beginning, “We want transparency.” The RCMP
says, “We’re going to be totally transparent.” The commission says,
“We’re going to be very sensitive, and we’re going to do this in a
trauma-sensitive way. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.” And as
soon as you show them transparency, they’re saying, “Holy shit, hide
that. That’s not what we wanted.” Well, that’s the bonafide truth. So
part of the problem is when you have journalists saying, “Oh, well, you
know, leave this up to official sources.” The problem is, as you can
quite clearly see in this one story alone, that there are serious
problems with the independence of everyone involved. Everyone is working
together.
I don’t know if they’re working together, but they’re all kind of on the same page.
They’re deferring to the official line and the official narrative. So
you have media basically saying, “Oh, well, this is a domestic-violence
story gone bad” — the original narrative of the RCMP, which I’ve
disputed from the beginning. And that wasn’t a conspiracy theory; that’s
based on interviews I had, people I talked to. But overcoming this
narrative is almost impossible. And even as I’m changing the narrative
and showing that there is a cover-up, everyone is still sticking to that
and calling people conspiracy theorists. It’s almost like a notion
created by the powers that be to stop investigative reporting, because
as soon as you do something outside the official narrative, you’re a
conspiracy theorist. I don’t follow the official narrative. I stick to
the facts. I investigate, and I use different techniques to find out
things. And if you’re going to label me a conspiracy theorist, so be it,
I’m proud to be it. Because I’m proving my story as I go along.
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Privacy Policy to learn more.LATEST STORIES
Cowardly and contemptible. As an anonymous critic, Ivana Smear
immediately identifies himself as devious and deceitful (Letter,
Attacking the messenger, May 11, frankmagazine.ca.)
Who could this concerned citizen be? A jealous journalist? Doubtful.
Nobody worthy of the trade would sink so low, and never, ever,
anonymously. Notably, Mlle Smear IDs himself, not as a journalist, but
as a member of the “media”. That’s a ploy used to validate Ms. Smear’s
tenuous overreach to inside-the-news-industry knowledge.
No, this is more likely some “communications” officer in one of the
organisations supposedly mistreated by Paul Palango’s digging. Possibly a
former aspiring journalist of the ilk we used to call “copsuckers” back
in the day. And that is not in any way meant as a slight toward police;
rather as descriptor of a grasping, wannabe colleague always ready to
accept any authority’s word without digging a quarter-of-an-inch deeper.
One who could be termed a journalistic hack prior to becoming a PR
mouthpiece for any organization they had previously been ``reporting``
on. Hack to flack, as it were.
Here’s a thought. Might he/she be an RCMP flack? Mrs. Smear seems
mightily familiar with the signature Mountie excuse lexicon: “not
credible”, “has an axe to grind”, “mental health crisis”, “conjecture
and speculation”. This is the classic distraction RCMP senior management
likes to deploy whether it be regarding complaints of sexual
harassment, mishandling of crises, accusations of racism or grievances
from the lower ranks. There is no need to list examples; there have been
plenty over the years.
Hinting at an upcoming libel case by Lisa Banfield against Palango is
Mme Smear’s back-up distraction. He knows there is no libel in
questioning a particular scenario offered by the RCMP. There are valid
reasons for examining a version of events that cannot be substantiated
by eyewitness testimony and medical records. Señorita Smear says
his/her sources (located down the hall at HQ perhaps?) say RCMP “have
nothing to suggest she [Lisa Banfield] is misaligned and very much is a
victim.” So ... they laid a criminal charge against her because ...???
Don’t be distracted. This isn’t about Lisa Banfield. Her lawyer, James
Lockyer, one of the best in the country, is probably focused more on
getting her an acquittal rather than wasting time persecuting legitimate
journalism. As a matter of fact Lockyer’s reputation was built on
securing freedom for the wrongly convicted, and as such is an
inspiration for investigative journalists following the same path. And
that ain’t supporting shoddy police work. No, this is all about covering
the brasses’ asses at the RCMP.
By the way, Señorita Smear, if you can’t divine what libel is and what
is not, here’s a very quick test. You suggest Palango is suffering from
mental illness, that he is viewed as “treacherous” by other journalists
and that Maclean’s “cut him loose” because he produced RCMP
internalsources with “an axe to grind” who “were not credible”. All that
and more. Now have the balls to sign your name so your lawyer can tell
you what libel is.
For full disclosure, I have known Paul Palango for nearly fifty years.
We were colleagues at the Hamilton Spectator and the Toronto Sun. We
were friendly competitors when he worked at the Globe and Mail and I at
the Toronto Star. I was his editor when he was a columnist-at- large at
Eye Weekly magazine in the early ‘90s. It fell to me to re-examine and
test his reporting whenever he ruffled feathers. Sometimes he ruffled so
many feathers the bird was denuded. In every case I investigated, the
veracity of his reporting was beyond reproach. He was relentless in
pursuing dirty birds down winding paths until he got to the truth. I
would trust him with my own eulogy. Your obfuscation and pathetic
attempt at libel chill will not faze him.
There is something that needs to be emphasised, particularly for those
who haven’t read his three authoritative books examining RCMP practices.
Palango has nothing but respect for the cop on the street. As an
investigative reporter and editor, he thinks like a cop. He could have
been a cop himself, and a damn good one. He worked very effectively for a
time as a fraud investigator for a large insurance firm. He loved it.
His brother, daughter and son-in-law have all worked as corrections
officers. It’s not cops he dislikes. It’s the nepotism, cronyism and
stupidity of far too many in the RCMP’s senior ranks. The attitude that
once you’re wearing the white-shirt, there’s little chance you will pay
for your mistakes. There will always be plenty of constables, corporals
and sergeants to take the fall.
Mrs. Smear claims Palango is taking us to dark places. Here are a few dark places he isn’t responsible for.
Fact: The RCMP was unable to stop a lone gunman from murdering 22
people, including one of their own. There are approximately 900 RCMP
personnel in Nova Scotia paid for by provincial taxpayers. By their own
public statements RCMP were hampered by the “dynamic and fluid” nature
of the crimes. Isn’t that what all serious crimes are?
Fact: The RCMP failed to notify the public using the Alert Ready system
specifically designed for such emergencies. By their own account they
were “preparing a statement” for release more than 12 hours after the
initial murders, when Gabriel Wortman was shot. Shamefully they claimed
tweeting on Twitter was an effective substitute. Clearly it wasn’t.
Fact: Four children, two of whom had already seen Wortman gun down their
parents, were left cowering in a basement for about three hours,
comforted only by a police dispatcher on the phone, while armed RCMP
waited near the scene. What were they waiting for? Who told them to
wait?Fact: Failure to use the Alert Ready system meant none of eight
civilians murdered on Sunday morning had any warning whatsoever. Their
blood is on the shameful hands of whoever decided to use Twitter rather
than the much broader Alert Ready system.
Fact: RCMP Constable Heidi Stevenson was shot dead and Constable Chad
Morrison seriously wounded while on routine patrol on Sunday morning.
Were they ever warned they were driving into the path of a murderer?
Fact: RCMP failed to notify Truro police about a murderer driving
through their town until after he had already done so. Who made that
call?
Fact: Local RCMP were reportedly going off-shift while Wortman was
snoozing in his replica police car mere kilometres away from the initial
murders. Did they think their job was done? Who was in charge?
The fact is, Frau Smear, there appears to have occurred a monumental
failure by the RCMP to do what it’s paid for, to protect the public,
followed by a smoke screen to avoid having to `fess up about the
screw-up. More recently, controversial police shootings in the United
States have seen both cops and police chiefs being fired or resigning.
Post Portapique it would seem no Mountie, at any level, has endured even
a slap on the wrist for what can only be described as a shit show. And
that, Dear Smear, is what makes guys like Palango commit good,
old-fashioned reporting, digging out the answers to questions that
``power`` doesn’t want asked.
Meanwhile the RCMP is investigating itself and the Nova Scotia Mass
Casualty Commission grows and grows as commissions are wont to do. Three
commissioners have now hired six new directors to lend a hand. No idea
about the number of support staff. Its report is scheduled for November
2022, more than two-and-a-half years after the murders. So far it hasn’t
held a (virtual) public meeting, more than a year after the murders. Is
this to facilitate thoroughness or really just to slow down the process
in hope that the hurt will go away? Unless everyone is working pro bono
this is going to suck a lot of cash out of the Nova Scotia economy. It
would have been quicker, cheaper and more productive to call in the OPP,
the
Rcmp opens up about former covert ops boss John Robin
May 18, 2021
RCMP opens up about former covert ops boss John Robin
by Paul Palango
The families and friends of the 22 murder victims who
died during Gabriel Wortman’s hideous rampage on April 18thand19th, 2020 all had their names published recently as part of the group
who were invited to participate in the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission
as it gets under way, whenever that might be.Even Wortman’s common-law wife, Lisa
Banfield, is on the list. Banfield is, without a doubt, the most
anticipated witness of the Inquiry.
As you know, most, if not all, of the families who are on
the public record say they don’t believe her version of events.“My clients will
finally be able to ask her some of the questions that they’ve had from the
beginning,” lawyer Robert Pineo, whose firm is representing them in a
class-action law suit, told CTV News.
The hearings are larded with all kinds of organizations
demanding input from nurses to police associations to a bevy of groups fighting
sexual assault, domestic violence, femicide, persons against state torture and
intimate partner violence and gender-based violence.
Domestic violence has been the focus of government since the
outset when a Portapique neighbour spun a scurrilous seven-year-old
story about Banfield being abused by Wortman. The RCMP responded to her
complaint at the time, but neither Banfield or anyone else would support the
claim.Few, if any, truly close to Banfield buys that story.
As Pineo put it, speaking for the families: “They don’t want
too much of the inquiry taken up on that aspect of it. They want to make sure
that the main questions about why this happened, how this happened, and the
events afterwards concerning communications are answered.
”A former friend of Banfield’s put it more bluntly: “I loved
the girl, I really did…. No way in hell was she abused. I don’t believe it for
a second. Like I said before, I saw her often alone or with her sisters. She
was happy as a pig in shit. I know those girls like they were my own three
sisters. No way in hell would she live or have to live in an abused situation.
She was always dressed to the nines and living the life of Riley.”
John Robin and that business card
The recent saga of RCMP Chief Superintendent John Robin,
who had been visiting witnesses and handing out his business card, has raised a
lot of eyebrows. You’ll recall that one of those witnesses he and another
Mountie dropped in on was Sharon McLellan and her husband Tim,
who live directly across from the Onslow Belmont fire hall.
Sharon had seen a pair of befuddled Mounties that Sunday
morning who seemed to believe they had found madman Gabriel Wortman, sitting in
the parking lot in his fake RCMP cruiser with safety cones around it.After
taking some wild shots and narrowly missing a real Mountie and an EMO
worker, the trigger-happy Mounties did $40,000 damage to the firehall
and some of the equipment inside.
Robin left his fresh, shiny business card with the
McLellans. It lists his name, rank and job title: Chief
SuperintendentContract and Indigenous PolicingRCMP National Headquarters,Nova
Scotia Mass Casualty Commission
It seemed outrageous to McLellan, who reported it to the Little
Grey Cells podcast, and then to Frank Magazine. It seemed equally
outrageous to us since I was told by my sources last May that Robin was
the head of the RCMP’s covert operations in Ottawa. In that position he
would have knowledge of every covert operation in Canada, including all
those involving confidential informants and police agents, which are
technically two different species of snitches.
The Mass Casualty Commission immediately cried foul when
Frank published Robin’s business card. Commission counsel Emily published this
on its website: “The Mass Casualty Commission is aware that an RCMP business
card is providing confusion about whether there is a relationship between the
RCMP and the Commission. We want to provide clarity.
The Mass Casualty Commission is an independent inquiry that
has the responsibility, among other things, of reviewing the RCMP’s activities
with respect to the mass casualty events and their aftermath. The Commission
does not employ anyone from the RCMP. We do not take any instructions from the
RCMP. We are asking the RCMP to remove the card to avoid further confusion. We
are reaching out to individuals and groups as well as the community to make
them aware of our concern about the incorrect perception about our independence
and to address any questions.
”Frank asked the RCMP what was going on, fully expecting a
“no comment” in either official language. But the questions we asked were a bit
loaded. We were already on the record pointing out Robin’s work in covert
operations. The RCMP didn’t know how much we knew, so had to do something it
was not used to doing – answer the question honestly or at least in that
vicinity.
Here is the answer provided by Corporal Chris Marshall,
the RCMP’s provincial public information officer:
“In addition to coordinating the RCMP’s response to the mass
casualty commission, C/Supt. Robin is also the officer in charge of
coordinating the RCMP’s responses to both external and internal workplace
safety investigations that are underway into the death of an RCMP officer, the
wounding of another and, the events that took place at the Onslow Belmont Fire
Brigade Hall. C/Supt. Robin was at the McLellan’s home to introduce himself in
his capacity related to the workplace safety investigations. C/Supt. Robin did
also explain that he has the added responsibility of coordinating the RCMP’s
response to the Mass Casualty Commission. C/Supt. Robin was accompanied by the
officer in charge of the internal workplace safety investigation, S/Sgt.
Bobbie Haynes.
In 2015, C/Supt. Robin transferred to RCMP National
Headquarters (NHQ) Technical Investigation Services (TIS) in Ottawa
after having previously served in British Columbia. TIS NHQ includes the
national research/policy centers responsible for lawful access technology,
covert physical surveillance, technical analysis and audio/visual forensic
units of the RCMP.
In 2017, C/Supt. Robin took over the post of Director
General of NHQ Covert Operations, and Operational Information
Management for the RCMP. Covert Operations is the RCMP policy center for
undercover operations, tactical open source and human source management.
Operational Information Management is responsible for operational information
intake and management, as well as coordination of priorities for federal
investigations undertaken by the RCMP.
In July 2019, C/Supt. Robin transferred from Covert
Operations to RCMP International Policing, serving 14 ½ months in
Ukraine as the Contingent Commanderfor Canada’s Police
Mission in Ukraine. This is a bilateral mission providing training and
capacity building for Ukrainian Police Officers.
C/Supt. Robin returned to Canada in October 2020 and
continued working with the Ukraine mission until January 2021 when he
assumed his current responsibilities as the officer in charge of the RCMP’s
response to the Mass Casualty Commission and the officer in charge of the
RCMP’s response to the internal and external workplace safety investigations.”
The somnolent media You’ll know that many have the long-held
belief that someone close to Wortman, perhaps Wortman himself, had a special
relationship with the RCMP. The force has denied it, of course. There is still
skepticism about that denial because the RCMP’s own operational manual says it
must lie about the existence of any informant – even if they are deceased.
Of all the Mounties in Canada, the RCMP's former Undercover
Boss now sits at the intersection of communications between the Mounties
and the “independent” Mass Casualty Commission.
Other than a rather decent one-off story by Chris Lambie
in the Chronicle Herald, the somnolent media took a pass on this one.
Couldn’t figure out the story, I guess. But the sudden
appearance of John Robin in the mix smells a little fishy to me. How about you?
A clique of married couples with B.C. connections run the rcmp in N.S. and why that is a problem.
A
high-ranking RCMP officer who was in charge of national covert
operations at the force’s headquarters in Ottawa has been quietly
working for the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission as an
investigator.
Chief
Superintendent John Robin is married to Chief Superintendent Janis
Gray, who has been the officer in charge of the RCMP in Halifax County
since October of 2019.
As the
officer in charge of covert operations from late 2019 until last fall,
Robin would have been aware of all RCMP undercover operations, including
the use of confidential and other informants and agents, knowledgeable
sources inside the RCMP said in interviews.
This
is pertinent because police sources have been indicating since soon
after Gabriel Wortman murdered 22 innocent people on April 18 and 19,
2020 that he or someone in his immediate circle may be RCMP informants.
The RCMP has denied such a relationship, but the sources continue to
insist that the force is not being truthful.
There
are also questions about the possible role played by the Combined
Forces Special Enforcement Unit, which is comprised of RCMP, Halifax
Regional Police and members from some other agencies. If there, in fact,
was a covert operation either involving Wortman or targeting him, the
CFSEU would likely have had a hand in it. That would mean that Chief
Supt. Gray would have had some kind of role.
On
its website page, the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission lists its
“Commission Team,” including its investigators: Dwayne King, Joel
Kulmatycki, Christoper Lussow, Elizabeth Montgomery, Scott Spicer and
Paul Thompson. There is no mention of Robin.
At the time of posting, nobody from the Mass Casualty Commission was answering questions about him.
Robin’s
link to the mass casualty commission was first revealed on Little Grey
Cells, a YouTube channel. Frank obtained three different copies of
Robin’s business card after I put out an appeal to the audience on the
Nighttime Podcast with Jordan Bonaparte.
On
April 12, Robin and another unidentified officer who said he didn’t
have a business card, paid a visit to Sharon and Tim McLellan. They live
across from the Onslow-Belmont firehall. On April 19, 2020 Sharon
witnessed two Mounties mistakenly shoot at another Mountie and an
Emergency Measures Officer who were standing in the parking lot. Wortman
had driven by moments earlier. Some of the shots went through the wall
of the firehall and narrowly missed some people inside. Total claimed
damage to the firehall was almost $40,000.
“He
came to our workshop and asked me and Tim if we could go somewhere
quiet to talk,” Sharon McLellan recalled in an interview. “He said he
just came by to see how we were doing. He didn’t take any notes or
anything. It was just talking. He said he had just come back from Europe
in September, and that he had worked in Ottawa for a while. He didn’t
say what he was doing.
He did say that his wife worked as a police
officer in the HRM. He left us his business card.”
For
the McLellan’s, who hadn’t heard from the Mounties for more than a
year, Robin’s visit was the second from the force in two days. The first
one was from Corporal Kyla Lounsbury, whose business card states that
she worked for the major crimes section in the “special project
unit/Adhoc Interview Team.” She was accompanied by another unidentified
Mountie without a business card.
The McLellans repeated their well-known story about what they saw and didn’t see that morning at the firehall.
McLellan
found the subsequent visit by Robin to be somewhat odd. After Robin and
his sidekick had left, she and her husband were scratching their heads
about why he was there.
“Should we be afraid?” McLellan asked.
Why
would such a high-ranking Mountie be paying them a social visit? After
all, the lead investigator in the mass shooting was a mere corporal,
Gerard Rose-Berthiaume.
A
good example of the murkiness of the conversation with Robin was the
lack of specificity in what Robin told them. He said he had been in
Europe. Actually, he was on a training mission in Mykolayiv, Ukraine. He
said he had worked in Ottawa. His card said he was involved with
contract and indigenous policing. RCMP sources say he headed covert
operations.
“They likely sent
him to Ukraine to clean up his resume and cloud the issue,” said one
Mountie insider. “That’s the way they do it.”
Both
McLellan’s were left with the impression that Robin’s unnamed wife was
with Halifax Regional Police, rather than her actual job as commander of
the RCMP in Halifax County.
Robin’s
until now hidden secondment to the Mass Casualty Commission appears,
among other things, to raise questions about the neutrality of the
entire enterprise.
“This is a
clear conflict of interest,” said a Mountie familiar with both Robin’s
career and the internal workings of the force. “The force is at its
Waterloo moment and it’s doing everything it can to save itself. It
doesn’t care what people think. It’s that desperate.”
The
officer and four others contacted about Robin’s appointment made
similar observations. The larger problem, they agreed, was that there
appears to be no independent thinking being done at the various levels
of the justice system.
“No one
is saying, ‘Hold on, wait a minute, we can’t do that,’“ said a former
officer. “The lawyers at the Department of Justice, provincial police
administrators, Crown attorneys, politicians and everyone else are on
the same page as the Mounties. They are moving in lockstep together – no
matter what the evidence to the contrary might be. It’s all about
saving the Mounties. That is so wrong. There is no accountability.”
Asked
what she thought about Robin’s role as a commission investigator,
Charlene Bagley said she wondered about who approved it and for what
reason. Bagley’s father, Tom, was murdered by Wortman after he had gone
to investigate what was going on at the home of Sean McLeod and Alanna
Jenkins on Hunter Road. Bagley said she is concerned about what is going
on inside the commission.
“Anyone with a conflict of interest in this should be removed,” Bagley said.
Janie
Andrews of Hubbards said she has grown to be suspicious of what the
RCMP and the government have been doing on the shooting file. Her first
cousin is the mother of Joey Webber, the Good Samaritan who was murdered
by Wortman at Cloverleaf Circle in Shubenacadie after Wortman had
killed Constable Heidi Stevenson.
Andrews
is skeptical about the integrity of the mass-shooting commission. She
believes that its declared focus on domestic violence and abuse is
designed to cover up other more politically sensitive matters, such as
possible police links to Wortman.
“This
inquiry, in my opinion, was ‘written’ to the letter to disguise the
real motives here. It’s a failure to the victims’ families and a failure
to the public,” Andrews said. “It will resolve nothing. Government will
likely, at best, throw a little money to the families in hopes that the
real story will disappear.”
Robin and his wife, Gray, are seen as controversial characters within the walls of the RCMP.
Robin
began his policing career with the municipal force in Delta, B.C., a
job from which he retired. The RCMP, desperate for capable senior
officers, lured Robin out of retirement to come to work for them. He
joined the Mounties as an officer, an inspector, and was placed in
charge of a homicide investigation unit.
One
of his first cases, if not the first, was the infamous Surrey Six
murders in October of 2007 in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey. A gang hit
on one target ended up in a bloodbath when the shooters killed five
witnesses, too. Robin was in charge of the subsequent investigation,
which turned into a debacle.
Some
of the investigating officers went wild with partying, $800 bar bills
and endless overtime. Two ended up having sexual relationships with the
girlfriends of some of the gang members being targeted for the murders.
The officers were either dismissed from the force or charged. One of
them, Corporal Paul Johnston, died last month of cancer in
Charlottetown.
While the
public might well see this as a case of Mounties going bad, inside the
force many saw what happened as an example of poor leadership.
“The
girlfriends of gang members are usually the most beautiful women you
will ever meet,” said one Mountie familiar with what happened in Surrey.
“These guys were sent out to mingle and get close to those women. They
were in their 20s. The Mounties were balding guys in their 40s. What did
they think was going to happen? All those Mounties were at the end of
their rope. They were crying for help, but they were totally ignored.
When things went south, they all got hung out to dry. There needed to be
strict supervision of what was going on and there wasn’t. At the end of
the day, John Robin got a bump.”
Janis
Gray had her own critics inside the force, especially over her handling
of former Mountie Catharine Galliford, who is generally considered to
be the person who ignited the furor over sexual harassment within the
force. Galliford’s last boss in British Columbia was Gray.
After
Galliford had settled her case with the force a non-disclosure and
non-disparagement agreement was signed between her and the force.
Nevertheless, after Galliford was lauded as a “hero,” Gray made comments
about Galliford that were seen to be demeaning of her.
“I,
too, know Catherine and this entire situation very well. It’s
unfortunate that some choose to write articles based on rumour and one
side only,” Gray wrote.
Former
Mountie Leo Knight publicly slapped her for her comments: “Janis Gray,
Cate went to you and you dismissed her. Shame on you.”
Bruce
Pitt-Payne, of the RCMP Pacific Region Training Centre, wrote: “I hope
I’m not offending you Ma’am but you said there’s more to the story, yet
you aren’t providing any detail. I’m just curious about what it is that
you know and that we should also know.”
Although
some in the RCMP thought Gray should have been reprimanded, she was
instead promoted and moved to Halifax to run the Halifax County RCMP,
the same job her boss, Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman had, before
moving to the top of the heap in Nova Scotia.
A former executive-level Mountie said that the current executive structure of the RCMP in Nova Scotia is a cause for concern.
Almost
every key position has gone to what are perceived to be a clique of
married couples who had served along side each other British Columbia.
The list includes Bergerman and her husband, ex-Mountie Mike Butcher.
Now a private citizen he is believed to do contract work for the force.
Chief
Superintendent Chris Leather is the number two officer. He served in
the Lower Mainland from 2014 to 2017. His wife, Audra, is a civilian
member and is currently in charge of honours and recognition – handing
out trophies, among other things.
Superintendent
Darren Campbell and his second wife, Inspector Erin Pepper came from
B.C. It is interesting to note that Campbell’s first wife was Catherine
Galliford.
Superintendent Julie
Moss came to Nova Scotia in 2018 along with her husband, Sgt. Terry
Faulkner. They were ensconced in the Southwest Nova District in the
Annapolis Valley. It is believed Moss played some role in the Portapique
investigation, but it’s not clear what that might have been.
Another
member of this cadre is Inspector Dustine Rodier who was placed in
charge of RCMP Communications. Her husband, Pascal, has tagged along
with her and now works as an emergency preparedness and planning manager
at the Nova Scotia Health Authority.
Rodier
had some unknown responsibilities in the RCMP communications centre
that terrible weekend when the force relied on Twitter rather than put
out a public alert. Whatever happened didn’t hurt her career prospects.
In March, she got a promotion and was made Bergerman’s right-hand
woman.
“There all watching each
other’s back,” said the former executive officer who echoed the
thoughts of many others. “It’s too tight. There’s no room for other
views or accountability. Most corporations or institutions would not
allow that to happen.”
Another
Mountie who has worked with many of the above Mounties said: “Some of
that group are very good at what they do, while others are several ranks
above their true ability. The bottom line is that “H” division seems
like more of an ex “E” Division girls club. It is who you know that gets
you brought in … a core group based on alliances and gender rather than
competence and relevance. Good old police work and promotion on merits
is dead.”
The
one-year anniversary of the slaughter of 22 innocent Nova Scotians was
marked in predictable fashion by the still-grieving families, the RCMP,
governments and media. Tears were shed, flowers were shared with the
Mounties, and heart-wrenching speeches were made.
Television
broadcasts milked every tear. Newspapers arose from their long slumber
and tried their best to show readers that they might be starting to
understand what happened. The Globe and Mail’s Greg Mercer actually
reported the name of Lisa Banfield and dared to suggest,
ever-so-politely, that some people were asking questions about her
story. How brave.
If reporters
found common cause in anything, it was a group lament about the disaster
that was the RCMP communications — internally and externally — that
entire weekend. Even while Gabriel Wortman was careering around the
province’s highways and biways killing people at will, the force didn’t
put out a public alert. Instead, the Mounties inexplicably relied on
Twitter to keep the public informed.
Meanwhile,
RCMP officers trying to catch Wortman never seemed to know where he
was. Some complained that their radios “bonked out,” meaning they
couldn’t send or receive messages.
Wortman
was only caught accidentally, or so we’re told, after encountering a
canine officer and some of his colleagues at the appropriately named
Irving Big Stop in Enfield. Unlike some other Mounties earlier that day
at the Onslow Belmont fire hall, the ones at the Big Stop could shoot
straight.
How The RCMP Got Hooked On Twitter
Remember
last April when the RCMP held four decidedly weird press conferences
during which Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman, Chief Superintendent
Chris Leather and Superintendent Darren Campbell all embarrassed
themselves? Caught lurking behind the scenes at Campbell’s press
conference on April 28 was an RCMP civilian employee named Alex Vass.
He
is a former journalist who had spent almost 30 years working as a radio
and television reporter in New Brunswick, the last 16 of them with the
CTV network. In April 2005, Vass went to work for the Mounties in their
strategic communications department. By 2020, he was a senior crisis and
communications strategist in the force, “using traditional and social
media to
meet business goals or
in other words using communications to solve and prevent crime,” as he
so awkwardly states in his own LinkedIn profile.
Vass
brought added value to the RCMP mainly because he had a pipeline back
to his former comrades in the CTV newsroom, where he could deftly wield
influence from behind the scenes and keep the CTV newsroom tame when it
came to stories potentially harmful to the RCMP’s reputation.
There
was another part of Vass’s back story that shed light on why the RCMP
had put so much of its faith in Twitter and Facebook and why it
continued to defend that mystifying decision. Leather memorably called
the platform “a superior way to communicate this ongoing threat” and
said he was “satisfied with the messaging.”
Vass
was the key person inside the RCMP who was instrumental in convincing
the force to use social media in a crisis and who was working behind the
scenes to manage the force’s response to the growing criticism of the
practise.
A lengthy story about
Vass and Twitter was written by Deidre Seiden and published on October
3, 2014 in Volume 76, Number 4 of the RCMP Gazette. The now on-line
magazine has been around since 1939 and covers “the latest topics in
policing, offers crime-prevention and safety tips, and highlights the
exceptional work of RCMP employees at home and abroad.”
Vass’s
interest in social media was sparked by one of the previous dark days
in RCMP history — the murders of the three Mounties and the wounding of
two others in Moncton. The shootings had begun around 7:30 p.m. on June
4, 2014, and the manhunt for killer Justin Bourque went on until he was
captured around 12:30 a.m. on June 6. The accompanying excerpt from The
RCMP Gazette captures the RCMP’s thinking about social media perfectly,
echoing the language employed to defend its use in the Portapique
situation.
Vass was sent a
detailed list of questions for this story but did not reply. Here is
what he was quoted as saying in the RCMP Gazette.
“We
had an idea of what we were dealing with, but the only thing that was
on our minds at the time was that we had an active shooter out there
somewhere in a residential area so the key is to get people to stay in
and stay away from that area,” says Vass...
“Social media was just the way to go,” says Vass. “It allowed us to get out and communicate directly to citizens.”
“It was a quick and easy way for the communications team to not only put the message out, but to have control over it.”
Vass
and the RCMP team even got an industry Oscar for what it did in Moncton
—the Connected Cops Social Media Event Management award.
“What
we were able to do through social media in terms of keeping the public
informed and aware of what was going on, and having that recognized by
peers, basically confirms that we did the right things at the right time
and for the right reasons,” Vass told Seiden.
Vass
dined out on all this in the ensuing years, invited to institutions
such as the Ontario Police College about his revelation in Moncton.
He
described how the lessons learned from Moncton had made the RCMP more
efficient and effective at communicating with the public. He expounded
on the supposed beauty of the social media system in that the RCMP could
reduce the number of conventional interviews it did with the media and
effectively bypass it by targeting the audience it wanted to reach.
This was before Donald Trump took a similar approach.
What
was lost in all the hype and glitter in the RCMP Gazette were a few
inconvenient facts. Just because some insider, self-interested group
hands you an award doesn’t make what you are doing right.
For
example, in Ontario in the late 1970s, Premier William Davis was named
International Transportation Man of the Year, for the province’s
development of a heavily subsidized linear-induction alternate subway
system.
Demonstration projects
were built in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, Detroit and Vancouver. I
wrote in The Globe and Mail that the system, which is still in use in
Vancouver, was inefficient, too expensive and not viable as a business.
Davis
tore a strip off me in public for writing that and used his influence
to have me removed from covering the provincial legislature — which
turned out to be a good career move.
Ontario
never sold another train and the project eventually collapsed. The
Toronto Transit Commission recommended in February 2021 that the
Scarborough line be closed down and be replaced by buses until an
improved replacement system is constructed by 2030.
The
RCMP Gazette article highlighted what it described as the explosive
growth of RCMP followers on its Twitter and Facebook accounts. Prior to
the Moncton shooting, Vass said the accounts respectively had 8,000 and
10,000 followers among the almost 800,000 residents of New Brunswick. In
the days after the shooting, these numbers shot up to 56,000 for
Twitter and 28,000 for Facebook.
The
Moncton experience so enamoured the RCMP with Twitter that before the
dust had even settled the Mounties hired CBC reporter Angela Chang. She
had been part of the coverage of the shootings and had actively
encouraged the CBC’s audience to tune into the RCMP Twitter feed at the
time. Once inside the RCMP, she became the force's director of strategic
communications in Fredericton.
The
next question should be obvious. Why was Vass at 80 Garland Avenue on
April 28? The Nova Scotia RCMP is the largest detachment in the
Maritimes. Vass was based out of 'J' Division in New Brunswick. Yet he
appeared to be the point man calling the shots in Nova Scotia on this
file. Why?
RCMP Promotions & More Award-Winning Internal Comms
Around
the time of Wortman’s rampage, the RCMP was in the final stages of
consolidating its two communications centres into one giant operation at
80 Garland Avenue. Former MP Bill Casey had long opposed the move,
arguing that closing down the Bible Hill communications centre was
short-sighted and potentially dangerous. Experts from around the world
seemed to agree. A single disaster could shut down the communications
centre and there would be no backup when it would be needed most.
The RCMP stubbornly ploughed ahead with its plans — mainly because it had lots of empty space to fill at 80 Garland.
Ironically,
on April 17, 2020, the day before Gabriel Wortman started killing all
those people, the RCMP had put out a tweet about one of its employees
getting an award.
“Glen Byrne,
Commander of the RCMPNS Operational Communications Centre, has been
awarded the 2020 National OCC Award for OCC Commander of the Year!
(that’s their exclamation point — and the next one, too.). The award
recognizes consistent excellence at work and alignment with the RCMP’s
core values. Congratulations, Glen!”
Huzzahs all around.
We
don’t know if Byrne was back at his desk that weekend after all the
celebrations, but whoever was in charge botched it up royally. The
award-winning communications systems didn’t seem to work when operating
under such stress — a mad man killing people.
All of which brings us to another key person in the realm of RCMP communications — Inspector Dustine Rodier.
She was the officer in charge of 'H' Division Operational Support and Operational Communications Centre on April 18/19, 2020.
Never
heard of her? She came to Halifax from Vancouver, via Hampton, New
Brunswick, where she spent a few years, eventually running the
detachment there. She used to fill in as a media spokesperson.
Her
husband, Pascal, tagged along with her. He has a solid reputation as an
expert in emergency management and has more letters after his name than
a British Royal (MStJ, MA, CEM, SAS...). In Nova Scotia, he landed a
new job as an emergency preparedness and planning manager at the Nova
Scotia Health Authority.
Being
married to Pascal for many years and being a Mountie, Dustine Rodier,
therefore, has lived most of her adult life immersed in disaster
management.
What was she doing that morning that she couldn’t take the calls from the EMO seeking to put out a public alert?
Whatever she had done must have been valuable in the eyes of the RCMP.
In
March of this year, Rodier got her reward for doing such a good job.
She was appointed executive officer to Assistant Commissioner
Bergerman.
Rodier is clearly on
the path to the top —damn what happened in Nova Scotia. And that’s the
Mountie promotion system in a nutshell.
The RCMP issued an order three weeks ago to its members involved in the
investigation in the Nova Scotia massacres to stop destroying evidence
in the case, according to internal RCMP documents obtained by Frank
magazine.
The trigger for the
moratorium on destruction of evidence appears to be a Canada Labour Code
investigation undertaken by Employment and Social Development Canada
into the matter.
The four-page
document is dated October 15, 2020. It appears to come from an internal
RCMP web page is headlined: “MD-218 – Moratorium on the destruction of
information involving Gabriel Wortman pertaining to the investigation of
the mass shooting in Nova Scotia on 2020-04-18 and 2020-04-19. The URL
for the web page is: http://rcmp-grc.gc.ca/manuels/national/moratorium/mid-218-.... The last bit of information is missing from the photocopy.
The document first was sent anonymously to Little Grey Cells, a You
Tube Channel, which operates out of Alberta. The show’s host, Seamus
Gorman, has been discussing it for the past few days in his broadcasts
as part of a group called The Discord. It is comprised of 380 citizen
investigators who have banded together since the massacre to dig up
information.
The timing and
wording of the RCMP memorandum strongly suggests that the RCMP has been
destroying documents and data in the case. Since May multiple anonymous
sources close to the investigation have suggested the RCMP was
destroying or altering paper and electronic evidence. This has
previously been reported in the Halifax Examiner and on the Halifax talk
show hosted by Rick Howe. The RCMP has not commented on the allegations
to date.
The order commands the RCMP to collect, protect and retain every kind
of evidence in the case, including paper documents, electronic data, 911
calls and radio communications.
To date the RCMP has resisted releasing any information or answer any
questions about what it did and didn’t do before, during and after the
shootings on April 18 and 19.
In
the new documents the RCMP is ordered to collect and retain “all
records, documents, and information pertaining to communications and
dealings with Gabriel Wortman, and all occurrences linked or related to
Gabriel Wortman, including intelligence reports, citizen reports, calls
for service and occurrence reports.”
The RCMP has been told to collect and retain “all occurrence reports,
briefing notes, SITreps, taskings and regular members’ notes of the
incidents, including notes or regular members who responded from “H”
Division,” which is Nova Scotia.
The directive makes it clear that a focus of the investigation is the
murder by Wortman of Constable Heidi Stevenson and the shooting of
Constable Chad Morrison near Shubenacadie on April 19.
Although Wortman
had already killed 19 people before he got to Shubenacadie that Sunday
morning, Stevenson and Morrison were travelling alone in their marked
cruisers when they each came upon Wortman.
The protection order applies to “All medical, employment and training
files of Cst. Heidi Stevenson, Cst. Chad Morrison and other individuals
injured or involved.”
In the past there have been unproven allegations that Stevenson had
some sort of conflict with a superior in her previous post at Cole
Harbour and had been transferred to Endfield, north of Halifax Airport,
shortly before her death.
After the shooting of three Mounties in Moncton on June 4, 2014, a
Canada Labour Code investigation found the RCMP liable and a judge later
fined the force $540,000. Among other things, the RCMP was blamed for
its lax supervision, poor communications and inadequate training and
equipment. The murdered officers were virtual sitting ducks for killer
Justin Bourque who was armed with a high-powered rifle. Prior to the
shootings the RCMP had promised to upgrade weaponry for police but did
not. After the fine was issued, the force provided Colt C-8 rifles, an
upgrade to the AR-15 semi-automatic, to its patrol officers.
In recent months a current RCMP member has been quoted on numerous
occasions in the Halifax Examiner and elsewhere as saying that the RCMP
was attempting to “pasteurize” the evidence in the case. The member said
there are ways the force can alter electronic files and data or even
make it disappear.”
Another
current member said in an interview that the biggest problem from a
public interest point of view is that the RCMP data management system,
known by its acronym PROs, can be manipulated by senior officers.
“There has never been an audit conducted on the integrity of data in
the PROs system,” the ranking officer said. “The force has had six
months to play with the evidence. Now, these investigators aren’t going
to take ‘the dog ate my homework’ for an answer. They will demand
answers to their questions.
”
A
third former RCMP officer who is familiar with the current inner
workings of the force said this in an interview: “This is the nightmare
for the force that I’ve been expecting. They have been doing everything
they can to hide information. They have likely trying to scrub the data
base to get rid of anything incriminating.”
Among the issues that are potentially embarrassing for the force include:
• The chain of command that weekend. Did the RCMP follow its rules and procedures manual?
• The lack of a public alert. Who made that decision? Why?
•
The fact that only a handful of Mounties were assigned to the original
crime scene? There are almost 1,000 RCMP officers in the province in
various capacities. Were they called out? If not, why not? If so, how
many refused to attend?
• Why
were nearby municipal police forces in Truro, Amherst and Halifax, among
others, not called in for assistance or adequately warned about the
dangers;
• Why did the RCMP call for help from the New Brunswick RCMP when it had clearly not exhausted all its resources in Nova Scotia?
• Why the RCMP did not employ a helicopter in its search and containment efforts?;
•
The possible relationship between Wortman and the RCMP or other police
forces associated with the RCMP? In other words, was he or anyone in his
circle a confidential informant, police agent or auxillary police?
All
these questions and more are being asked as part of the Labour Code
Investigation. The RCMP has appointed Erika Lathem in the Criminal
Operations office at the force’s Nova Scotia headquarters as
co-ordinator for all information.
Wortman, CI - mounties move anti-biker operations to NB - suicide staff sergeant Bruce Reid
What connection - if any - between his tragic death & Wortman story ?
Was there a connection between the decision in late summer 2019 to
centralize all Maritime mountie anti-biker operations to New Brunswick
and the October 25th 2019 sudden suicide of veteran mountie, staff
sergeant Bruce Reid ?
And did this central command process upset long time relationships local
provincial RCMP had built up with informants inside and on fringes of
local Hells Angels branches and farm teams ?
Such that the multi-province raids against Hells Angels & associates in February 2020 fuelled extrahuge amounts of biker paranoia over who had betrayed them this time ?
Did this paranoia spill over to lover-of-motorcycles,
friends-with-Hells-Angels, RCMP CI, Gabriel Wortman in February and
March 2020 ?
We recall, from FRANK MAGAZINE reporting, just how paranoid GW was about
a couple of plain clothed HRM police poking around near his Portland
street garage in mid February - a big RCMP anti biker operation was
about to go down, starting a handful of days later.
As the raids continued into March, a jumpy GW withdrew $450,000 in large bills and started stockpiling gasoline.
Were things all going pear shaped for Gabe Wortman on the biker front ?
Did this coincide with covid worries?
(But GW claimed he was about to retire, so covid only affected the
re-sale value of his clinic if he got out in April rather than wait til
say July).
Did this coincide with his increasingly fragile health ?
I see in his very last photos, a man who looked strikingly different
from his life-long wiry self. Thirty years of hard drinking and not
enough proper foods had really done a number on his health - his liver
in particular.
A lot of questions ; so few answers.
Keep those tips coming in people - if not to me, than to other media
sources you can trust to follow things up, not to just sit on them....
this
page is not a offical RCMP our have affiliation with any Canadian
police department it's a news story sharing source for the public and to
support public interaction within Canada police departments to help
with departmental issues
This book examines the recent history of the RCMP,
arguing that Canadians should be concerned about its mandate, its
performance, and its too-close relationship to government and politics.
It gives an overview of the politically-charged investigations that have
shaped the relationship between governments of Canada and the RCMP
since the 1980s, such as the Income Trust scandal, Airbus, Project
Sidewinder (a joint RCMP-CSIS investigation), the RCMP pensions and
insurance scandal, and the Maher Arar case, concluding that the federal
and provincial governments have re-shaped the RCMP over the past three
decades for their own political purposes and that this influence has
damaged both the RCMP as an organization, and undermined national
security.
1. A typo: the key to a monumental intrigue. -- 2.
Jean Chrétien and Giuliano Zaccardelli. -- 3. The emperor commissioner.
-- 4. The invisible hand of Stephen Harper. -- 5. Maher Arar takes the
stage. -- 6. The Mounties charge into the fog. -- 7. The crowing of an
influential man. -- 8. My attempts to interview Maher Arar. -- 9. Arar
reconsidered. -- 10. Behind the typo: CIM 2000 Inc. -- 11. Arar's
travels. -- 12. The Canadian candidate and the scapegoat. -- 13. A
convenient diversion. -- 14. The lost guardians. -- 15. The Arar
gatekeepers take over the RCMP. -- 16. Shades of truth. -- 17. The
secret armies of the RCMP. -- 18. The four horsemen of the apocalypse.
-- 19. All the dead young saints. -- 20. Federal policing - the biggest
scandal? -- 21. Airbus I - le cercle of disturbing benefactors. -- 22.
Airbus II - lyin' Brian and his media "enemies". -- 23. Project
sidewinder: the "power" behind the throne. -- 24. Canada's undermined
national security. -- 25. The Australian model: constant evolution. --
26. The lurking dangers of "integrated policing". -- 27. A
not-so-invisible hand, after all.
A
journalist who has written three books on the RCMP says a typographical
error in a federal commission of inquiry report led him to discover a
great deal about Maher Arar’s past. Paul Palango, author of the new book Dispersing the Fog: Inside the Secret World of Ottawa and the RCMP (Key Porter Books, $32.95), told the Straight
in a phone interview that he wonders if Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian
engineer, has had a long-standing relationship with the FBI. Palango
also said he thinks that the federal government made former RCMP
commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli a fall guy, possibly to cover this up.
Zaccardelli resigned in 2006 after revelations that the RCMP
shared information about Arar with U.S. authorities, who detained him at
an airport in New York. “They had to have a scapegoat to hammer home
this Arar story,” Palango said. “And he was made a scapegoat.”
A commission headed by Ontario associate chief justice Dennis O’Connor
had a mandate to report on the period between Arar’s detention in the
United States on September 26, 2002, and Arar’s return to Canada in
October 2003. O’Connor determined that Arar was shipped to Syria by the
Americans and tortured, even though he posed no threat to national
security. Prime Minister Stephen Harper later announced
a $12.5-million settlement (including legal fees) for Arar, who never
testified under oath to anyone about his experiences.
Palango, a former national news editor at the Globe and Mail,
said he had originally planned to write one chapter on Arar as an
example of RCMP bungling. But it mushroomed into a much larger portion
of the book as he learned more about the case. He noted that the
O’Connor commission report provided very little information about Arar’s
past.
“I didn’t know who he was,” Palango said. “If you asked the
basic questions of journalists—who, what, where, when, why, and
how—he’s like an invisible man.”
Palango discovered that the
O’Connor commission report misspelled the name of a company that was
listed as part of Arar’s employment history. In one place, it was
identified as “CIM21000 Inc.”, and in another, it was written as
“CIM2000”.
Palango later discovered that Arar had set up a company
with a slightly different name, CIM 2000 Inc., which was registered
between 1997 and 2000 in the name of his former sister-in-law, Parto Navidi. At the time, she and her ex-husband, Mourad Mazigh, were living in a house owned by an arms dealer named Pietro Rigolli.
Rigolli was later jailed for violating a U.S. embargo on selling
military hardware to Iran. Palango reports in his book that search
warrants were executed on Navidi’s house and at a building at a Montreal
airport, but that the affidavits to support the search warrants
disappeared from a Montreal courthouse in 2000. In the book, Palango
notes that it’s unclear whether Arar lived in the house with his
brother-in-law and his brother-in-law’s then-wife.
Palango said
that if in fact Arar was living there, “In light of the Rigolli
investigation, which was conducted on both sides of the border in 1999
and 2000, Arar and his family would have been identified as being the
tenants of Rigolli’s house. And all of those connections would have been
made.”
In 1999, Arar went to Boston to work for a company called
MathWorks, which Palango said was a contractor for the CIA and the U.S.
defence department. Palango said that Arar appeared to have no
difficulty obtaining work permits for the U.S., adding that it’s
unlikely Arar was ever linked to terrorism.
“You can only infer
from this that there is a special relationship between the U.S.
government and Arar that had to be protected,” Palango maintained. “So
what is that relationship? And why I lean towards the American angle is
because of his access into the States. He can renew his work permits. He
goes to work for MathWorks. You know, it seems all orchestrated to me.”
In a 2005 article citing unnamed CIA sources, the Washington Post
reported that of 39 people who were sent to jails overseas through a
process known as rendition, about 10 were later found to be innocent.
Palango said that they all shared similar stories, which increased his
suspicions about the true nature of the Arar case. As well, he claimed,
all later got involved in left-wing politics. Arar’s wife, Monia Mazigh,
the sister of Mourad Mazigh, ran for the federal NDP in the 2004
election. “So where does the FBI or CIA or U.S. intelligence want to
be?” Palango said. “Where do they want information? It’s from the left
wing.”
The Straight left a message for Arar through his publicist; Arar did not return the call by deadline.
Dispersing the Fog is an unprecedented and explosive report compiled
from an investigation into the politics and justice system of Canada,
focusing primarily on the relationship between governments of Canada
since the 1980s and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Until recently, no institution in Canada has enjoyed such admiration
and respect as the Mounties. They were beloved. They were trusted. They
were respected. From its humble beginnings in 1874, the Mounties have evolved into a
hugely complex police force with almost 16,000 officers and nearly
10,000 civilians with an annual budget of $4 billion. There is no police
service in the world like it, and for good reason. For more than 35
years the RCMP has found itself mired in a seemingly unending litany of
organizational, legal and political controversies, the kinds of scandals
that would have ruined a similar-sized corporation. How did it all go so wrong? In Dispersing the Fog, Paul Palango provides answers to questions
that have long simmered in the consciousness of Canadians. Why was
Ottawa so anxious to settle in the Maher Arar case? What were the roots
of the Income Trust scandal that helped to get Stephen Harper elected
Prime Minister of Canada? Was Brian Mulroney an innocent victim of
biased journalists in the ongoing Airbus imbroglio? Why did governments
cover up the truth in Project Sidewinder, a joint RCMP-CSIS investigation? Palango builds on the powerful and influential arguments made in his first two RCMP books, Above the Law and The
Last Guardians, to show Canadians why they should be concerned about
the RCMP, its mandate, its performance and its relationship to
governments and politics. No other author knows the subject matter better than Palango. Dispersing
the Fog is not just a book about the RCMP, but a story about the
political and justice systems in general and a wake-up call for any
Canadian concerned about the security and integrity of the country. Dispersing the Fog is an elegant, thorough and
conclusive debunking of the many myths of the RCMP and the Canadian way
of policing. It shows clearly how the federal and provincial governments
have encouraged and nurtured the RCMP over the past three decades for
their own political purposes. It takes the reader on a step-by-step,
virtually invisible process whereby one prime minister after another
toyed or parried with the RCMP in pursuit of his own respective agenda. In our post-9/11 world, Dispersing the Fog
addresses the role played by RCMP leaders, politicians and the media,
who have all collectively failed to recognize and address the very real
and articulate concerns of Canadians from coast to coast who have long
questioned the ability or willingness of the RCMP to carry out its
duties. No one who cares about democracy and the health of the country's guardian institutions can afford to ignore this book. CORRECTION Dispersing the Fog written by Paul Palango and
published by Key Porter in 2008 incorrectly identified Julie Van Dusen
as the source of a question posed by a member of parliament at the
ethics committee into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair. Ms. Van Dusen
reported on the proceedings but was not the source of any questions. Key Porter and Paul Palango apologise for this mistake.
About the author
PAUL PALANGO was
born in Hamilton, Ontario and earned a degree in journalism from
Carleton University. He has worked at the Hamilton Spectator (1974-1976), covered
the Toronto Blue Jays in their first season for the Toronto Sun (1977),
and worked at the Globe and Mail from 1977 to 1990 as City Editor and
National Editor—where he was responsible for the supervision of
investigative journalism done by Globe reporters across the country. In
1989, on behalf of the Globe and its staff, he was selected to accept
the Michener Award from then Governor-General Jeanne Sauve. After
leaving the Globe, he worked as a freelancer, writing a city column for
eye weekly magazine in Toronto for almost five years. In 1993, he began
work as a fraud investigator for a leading forensic accounting firm,
which allowed him to see the justice system from a unique perspective.
In that capacity, he traveled extensively around North America
investigating fraud, including an arson investigation in Saskatchewan,
in which he helped the Mounties there focus on the likely perpetrator,
who eventually was convicted and went to prison. He has worked on
investigations for the Fifth Estate—including a case involving links
between Hamilton mobsters and then Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps—as
well as investigative journalist pieces for Saturday Night, MacLean’s,
Elm Street, Canadian Business and Hamilton Magazine, among others. His
books include, Above The Law (McClelland & Stewart) and The Last
Guardians (McClelland & Stewart 1998).
A shocking exposé of the deadliest killing spree in Canadian
history, and how police tragically failed its victims and survivors.
As news broke of a killer rampaging across the tiny community of Portapique, Nova Scotia, late on April 18, 2020, details
were oddly hard to come by. Who was the killer? Why was he not
apprehended? What were police doing? How many were dead? And why was the
gunman still on the loose the next morning and killing again? The RCMP
was largely silent then, and continued to obscure the actions of
denturist Gabriel Wortman after an officer shot and killed him at a gas
station during a chance encounter.
Though retired as an investigative journalist and author, Paul
Palango spent much of his career reporting on Canada’s troubled national
police force. Watching the RCMP stumble through the Portapique
massacre, only a few hours from his Nova Scotia home, Palango knew the
story behind the headlines was more complicated and damning than anyone
was willing to admit. With the COVID-19 lockdown
sealing off the Maritimes, no journalist in the province knew the RCMP
better than Palango did. Within a month, he was back in print and on the
radio, peeling away the layers of this murderous episode as only he
could, and unearthing the collision of failure and malfeasance that cost
a quiet community 22 innocent lives.
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER PRAISE FOR PAUL PALANGO: “Why
isn’t the Nova Scotia mass shooting a national scandal? It may well
turn out to be if Paul Palango has anything to say about it.” NOW (Toronto)
Paul Palango has a lot of material to work with in his new book
about the ineptitude, incompetence, and, in some cases, outright
corruption of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Having drifted far from
the public image of probity that the Mounties have cultivated – and,
Palango contends, have come to rely on to maintain their popular support
– the force is in need of major changes.
Dispersing the Fog: Inside the Secret World of Ottawa and the RCMP
covers everything from the RCMP's mishandling of the Air India
investigation – due in part to the force’s ongoing rivalry with CSIS –
to its role in the Maher Arar affair. Along the way, Palango points out
more pedestrian examples of backwardness, such as the force’s outmoded
training system and the shockingly long list of recent casualties. After
all of this, the RCMP comes off worse than the Baltimore Police
Department of David Simon’s TV series The Wire.
The RCMP’s investigations of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s
relationship with Karlheinz Schreiber offer all sorts of material for
Palango, but he goes off in an improbable direction, discussing shadowy
groups Le Cercle, the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission.
He even throws in brief mentions of Opus Dei and the Bavarian
Illuminati.
This is the stuff of poorly researched conspiracy theory websites.
While there may be something reassuring and even entertaining in
invoking nefarious organizations to help explain away some of the
political events of the last quarter-century, it is ultimately
unconvincing. Palango is on much firmer footing in his second chapter on
the Mulroney-Schreiber affair, which focuses on the efforts of
reporters to uncover details in the face of institutional roadblocks.
Aside from the drift into conspiracy theory, Dispersing the Fog
is a useful catalogue of the many flaws and shortcomings of the RCMP,
complete with interesting suggestions for improving their situation.
Paul Palango: Democracy and accountability are an illusion
By Paul Palango, straight.com December 04, 2008
�Aren�t you afraid?�
That is a question I�ve been asked hundreds of times over the
past two years as I researched, wrote, and published my latest book, Dispersing the Fog: Inside the Secret World of Ottawa and the RCMP.
The question has been asked of me by curious politicians,
bureaucrats, police officers, a judge and an ex-judge, my friends and
acquaintances, and members of my own family.
The very fact that it is asked suggests that Canadians are not
entirely comfortable in their own country. We think we live in a safe,
open society, but at the same time so many Canadians seem to believe
that it is dangerous to ask questions or raise issues that might strike
at the heart of something darker going on within the country.
Am I afraid?
No and yes.
In my career as a journalist and author, I�ve seen how power is wielded in the shadows.
In the early 1980s, as a reporter at the Globe and Mail,
I undertook an investigation into the Urban Transportation Development
Corp., an Ontario Crown corporation. The UTDC, as it was known, was the
baby of then-premier William Davis, who had received international
recognition for promoting the company�s linear-induction train
technology. I found that the technology was extremely expensive and
would not likely sell in a competitive market without enormous
government subsidies.
The UTDC never sold another train after that article.
Back then, Davis took aim at me both personally and
professionally. He called me a traitor to Ontario and complained
privately to the publisher of the Globe and Mail about my �biased� reporting.
A few weeks later, while I was stopped at a traffic light on University Avenue in Toronto, a reporter for the Toronto Star pulled up beside me, rolled down his window, and said: �I hear you�re going to sports.�
And so it happened. Three weeks later, I was a sports reporter,
but the sidetracking did not deter me. A year later I was the sports
editor, then city editor and, finally, national editor at the Globe and Mail.
Nevertheless, I continued fighting to the end, driven by the belief that journalism was a calling, not a profession.
Over the years, I witnessed the gradual transformation of
newsrooms. New reporters had better and more elaborate pedigrees. I
remember one time when then�Globe editor William Thorsell
posted the biography of a new young reporter on the bulletin board as an
example of what we should all aspire to be. The reporter, Mark
Kingwell, had multiple degrees and was an accomplished pianist. As it
turned out, he wasn�t much of a reporter, but he turned out to be a
notable pop philosopher and author.
Pedigree and university degrees became more important than
instinct in the news business. Newsrooms, once rowdy and noisy, became
like insurance company offices: neat, tidy, and lifeless. It was no
surprise, therefore, that the stories emanating from these newsrooms
became just as predictable. News decisions were replaced by business
decisions, and the news business still wonders why it is not so highly
regarded by the public.
In the 1990s, I wrote two books about the RCMP: Above the Law and The Last Guardians.
The first book was widely praised; the second was all but ignored by
the mainstream media. I think the reason for this was that I had begun
to focus on the unseemly political realities of Canada, for example, the
politicization of the bureaucracy and the lack of checks and balances
built into the system.
At one point in the mid-1990s, I began to investigate the
Vancouver Stock Exchange and the influence and activities of members of
the Church of Scientology. Nobody would publish the piece, mainly
because Time magazine was facing a $500-million lawsuit after having written a slice of that story.
In 1996, I became involved in an investigation in Hamilton,
Ontario, of a waste-management company. By just asking questions, I
attracted an $11-million lawsuit and death threats
In that investigation, I was among the first�if not the first�to
uncover and recognize large-scale accounting fraud. I mistakenly
believed that government, police, the banks, and the accounting industry
would rush to the rescue, but I had not come to appreciate how much the
world had changed in such a short period of time. The mainstream media,
fed to the point of satiation on news releases and marketing by
governments, business, and themselves, did not want to hear the story.
In fact, they were more interested in attacking me.
I was made out to be the enemy, even though the company in
question had hired private investigators to conduct surveillance on me
and my family. Attempts were made to steal our trash. Someone tried to
poison our dogs. My family lived in fear, and our circumstances were
severely reduced, but we wouldn�t give in. It took me a decade to fight
that lawsuit off and win a favourable settlement.
The two books I had written during this period were not published
because of the outstanding litigation. The roaring tigers of the media
and publishing world had been reduced to cowering kittens and
stenographers.
By the time I came to write Dispersing the Fog, I was
battle-hardened. That doesn�t mean I was not fearful, but I was careful
and cautious, particularly so when I stumbled into the underlying story
of Maher Arar.
The official Arar story was that he was an innocent man who was
betrayed by incompetent RCMP and CSIS officers and shipped by the
Americans to Syria, where he was tortured for a year. The O�Connor
Commission held hearings and the Harper government awarded Arar $10.5
million in compensation in February 2007, and another $2 million for
legal fees. I had publicly bashed the RCMP for what it had done on
numerous occasions on radio, on television, and in print.
However, as I researched the book, there was much about the Arar
story that did not make sense to me, especially after I began to dig
deeper into the official story. An apparent typo in the O�Connor
Commission report eventually led me back into Arar�s past to a convicted
arms dealer. The timing and the circumstances of the arrest of the arms
dealer, as well as the fact that documents about the case went missing
from a Montreal courthouse in 2000, were extremely suspicious.
As I pursued the Arar story in the fall of 2007, each step I took
was measured and thought out in advance. I didn�t want to talk to too
many people I did not know, because that could be dangerous. The entire
Arar affair had been hidden under the veil of national security.
Reporter Juliet O�Neill and the Ottawa Citizen had already been
raided by the police after having written stories about Arar�s past,
based on tips from anonymous sources. I felt I had to fly under the
radar and get my story out before anyone realized what I was doing.
However, strange things did begin to happen. By October 2007, my
sources were telling me that the government and the RCMP had issued
strict orders that no one discuss the Arar case with me.
In November, my computer started acting weirdly. I found that it
was heavily infected with viruses. I installed a new computer on a
Wednesday afternoon. It had a Windows firewall and another firewall on
its router. The next morning, my brand-new computer was barely
functioning. A technician from my Internet provider, Eastlink, worked
over the phone with me for more than an hour trying to determine what
was wrong. Finally, a technician came to my house. He discovered that
overnight someone had hacked into the system and deposited 1,105 copies
of viruses and Trojan horses on my hard drive. Eastlink security said
that whoever had attacked me had targeted me and was �extremely
sophisticated. You should call the police.�
I did not do that. I just changed computers and used my laptop.
The next week, my laptop wasn�t working. Someone had managed to get into
the registry and flip off my product code.
�Whoever did this must have been in your house,� a security technician from Eastlink told me. �You should call the police.�
I was certain that no one had been in my house, but I asked Eastlink to record both situations in its logs.
I had one more attack similar to the others. I called Halifax
police chief Frank Beazley and asked him for advice. He told me to
complain to the RCMP about it, but I declined to do so. I knew how the
RCMP might try to use something like that against me by suggesting that I
was paranoid. I asked Beazley to note my call and concerns in his
diary.
So I just soldiered on, changing computers and improving my
defences but never going off-line and working on a computer unconnected
to the Internet. Call it doublethink. I believed that if I had done so
and tried to hide what I was doing, I might have invited an intrusion by
whoever was interested in my work.
�Are we in danger?� my wife, Sharon, asked me.
�Maybe, I don�t know,� I told her. �But I may have to go to jail for a while on some trumped-up charge. Will you visit me?�
Things seemed to settle down after that, but when I told my
editor, Jonathan Schmidt, at Key Porter Books what had happened, he was
stunned. �Our computers have been down for days,� Schmidt said. �Our
technicians can�t figure out what happened.�
Maybe there was a connection and maybe not. Maybe it was all just
a coincidence, but I had to take whatever was happening seriously.
My phones and computers were always acting up. As I reported in
the book, I was mysteriously blocked from some Web sites while probing
possible connections to Arar. Nevertheless, I talked openly on the
phones and through e-mails and made it clear that copies of my stories
were regularly being sent to my publisher, agent, lawyers, and others,
including two working journalists. I kept these people in the loop at
all times because the dumbest thing for a vulnerable freelancer to do is
try to protect an explosive story alone. Ask Danny Casolaro. He ended
up dead in August 1991 in a West Virginia motel bathtub, and his file on
the �Octopus�, as he called it, went missing forever.
I did not flinch in pursuing this story because I see myself as
merely the agent of the story, and the story demanded that I go as far
as I possibly could to tell it.
Should I be afraid for my life? It seems like such an
unreasonable proposition to even consider, but that�s the way Canadians
seem to think. Like a vast colony of J. Alfred Prufrocks, far too many
of us are afraid of our shadows, of making a scene or getting peach
juice on our clothing. We are caught up in our creature comforts, our
ATVs, iPhones, and scripted reality television, willfully oblivious that
everything we have can be taken away at a moment�s notice, because no
one really seems to believe in anything but the easy life.
Dispersing the Fog is more than the story of Maher Arar;
it is an investigation and analysis of the past 30 years of Canadian
politics. It conclusively shows, based upon hard and irrefutable
evidence, that we have lost control of our own country. There is an
appearance of democracy, but real democracy and accountability are an
illusion. There is no will at the highest levels to incorporate checks
and balances in the system that would serve to protect us all. I guess
that�s too dangerous an idea to be discussed openly.
I love Canada. I want Canada to be fair, progressive, and
governed by the rule of law. It is a battle worth waging for everyone,
even if it means in the short term being personally smeared by
politicians, police, and members of the media who are all too cognizant
of their own culpability.
That�s the only thing to fear in Canada. You don�t get killed for
being on the cutting edge in Canada; you either are ignored or shunned,
or get heaps of mud thrown at you. Over the past few weeks, I�ve
experienced all three.
I was booked to do a number of shows on national television�CTV�s Canada AM, the CBC�s Sunday Morning�and
the CBC radio syndicate, among others. Each cancelled at the last
minute. Why? We can�t find out. My public-relations person, Pat Cairns,
says she has never seen a media response like that. She�s astonished.
It�s clear that not only my well-researched Arar story but everything
else in the book�about the RCMP, Jean Chr�tien, Brian Mulroney, Stephen
Harper, and the state of Canada�is making too many people nervous.
Although the media is aware of what I have written, no one, to my
knowledge, has bothered to confirm or refute what I report. To do so
would only open a can of worms that no one�the government, political
parties, or, especially, the mainstream media�wants to touch.
Instead, the official Arar story is perpetuated ad nauseam as if I
had written nothing. The CBC�s Anna Maria Tremonti was almost in tears
in early November while interviewing Arar and his wife, Monia Mazigh,
about her recently published memoirs.
An executive producer for The Hour said George
Stroumboulopoulos wasn�t interested in my story, and a week later, on
November 27, Stroumboulopoulos interviewed Arar and Mazigh again,
promoting Mazigh�s book without ever popping a meaningful question about
Arar�s mysterious past.
I have been tarred as a conspiracy theorist�the lowest of the
low�which is the Canadian way of shooting the messenger. I�ve even heard
reporters say that my Arar story is not credible because I do not have
�official sources� confirming it, as if the government would admit to
what it has done. Many of the facts I dug out were unknown to the
original RCMP investigators in the Arar case, hidden from them by their
own force. The great irony is that the Canadian media got sucked into
the Arar story because it relied religiously only on official sources
who manipulated it into a box. The facts speak for themselves�the
emperor is in the buff.
Those who have read it tell me Dispersing the Fog is a powerful and important story about the way Canada works and who is pulling the strings.
My brave publisher at Key Porter Books believes Dispersing the Fog
is a landmark work�an elephant in the room that cannot be ignored
forever. Just how long it will take to break through this journalistic
blockade is anyone�s guess.
Thank you for letting me take this shower in public. And no, I have no problems sleeping at night.
Rob Doucette aka Rob the Carpenter 
wow what a take she can tell, oh yeah he is so abusive that first she grabbed the phone from him, I don't believe if he's so bad tempered that you would grab something from a person like that, her story is full of holes. Why would he burn everything down and kill all these people but not her his source of anger. She's lying 
The front passenger side window of the Mazda 3 (credit: True Blue)
"If
you're going to label me a conspiracy theorist, so be it," Paul Palango
says. "Because I'm proving my story as I go along."JUNE 7, 2021
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