generalspeaking

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Playing Police : Mass Murder

"The retired RCMP officers related to the gunman have been interviewed as part of the investigation. The origin of all police-related items is still under investigation."

"We respect the Court's decision to release the redacted documents. Because the unsealing of the ITOs is a matter before the courts and in consideration of our ongoing investigation, the RCMP is not currently in a position to provide additional details."

RCMP Constable Hans Ouellette

"I've been a police officer for 30 years now and I can't imagine a more horrific set of circumstances than looking for someone who looks like you."

RCMP Superintendent Darren Campbell

The gunman torched several homes including his home in Portapique, N.S. (Steve Lawrence/CBC)

On April 18 and 19, beginning in Portapique, Nova Scotia, a small seaside town, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman set off on a psychotic murder spree that he had obviously planned, taking with him an arsenal of illegally-acquired firearms, as he entered neighbours' homes to shoot them to death then set their homes ablaze, as he came across perfect strangers on highways en route to larger Nova Scotia cities to arrive at the homes of others he meant to kill, taking in total 22 lives, men and women, friends and strangers alike.

He began his murderous journey dressed in an RCMP uniform, and driving a look-alike police vehicle. On first seeing him no one might suspect that they would be next to die. But those two days of bloody carnage and burnt-out buildings and vehicles produced the worst mass murder in Canada's history. In Portapique where he began his rampage, he killed 13 people before leaving the town, cutting across a field rather than drive the sole highway leading to the town, where the RCMP was arriving in response to 911 calls.

Failing to find the murderer in town, the RCMP set up a roadblock, but he was long gone. And in the morning that followed, driving his replica police cruiser, wearing his uniform, his murder spree continued as he targeted people at random, and searched out those he knew. During the police manhunt an RCMP officer was shot, another had her car rammed by Wortman's and he shot her to death. He appropriated her service revolver and ammunition, adding them to his own, then torched her car and his own, disabled by the crash.

A Halifax regional police investigator is seen in a suite above the Atlantic Denture Clinic April 20, 2020 in Dartmouth, N.S. The clinic was owned by the gunman, Gabriel Wortman. (Tim Krochak/Getty Images)

RCMP investigators search for evidence at the location where Const. Heidi Stevenson was killed along the highway in Shubenacadie, N.S. on Thursday, April 23, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

When a passerby stopped to provide help at the scene, he was shot to death too, and his SUV provided the next vehicle the murderer would use as he went on to continue his rampage. It was when he stopped to gas up at a station in Enfield that another RCMP car stopped for gas. It was the officer driving that police car that ended up shooting the killer at the gas station. As the RCMP got on with their post-mortem of the tragic event, their investigation led them to the finding that the killer was related to two former members of the RCMP.

A Nova Scotia judge had ordered that police documents be released to the media, even as the investigation continues. A colleague who had worked with Wortman at one of the denture clinics he owned, had informed investigators of Wortman's uniform, stating that he would dress up as a police officer and would "role play". By no means or measure was he merely 'role playing' when he set out masquerading as an officer of the law to enact a prolonged and deadly drama representing the worst mass murder Canada has ever mourned.