Five Lives Lost to Paranoid Animus

"Because of the county where the case would be tried, the court system there, the prosecution, the types of jurors they're gonna get, which are mostly rural conservative jurors, I think it's a pretty fair bet this guy is gonna get hit with five death penalty sentences."  

Criminal Defense Attorney Kent Schaffer

 

"He told us he was on his property, and he could do what he wanted."

"I told my wife, 'Get inside. This man has loaded his weapon'."

"My wife told me to go inside because he won't fire at me, I'm a woman."

"I'm trying to be strong for my children. My daughter sort of understands. It is very difficult when she begins to ask for mama and for her [older] brother."

Wilson Garcia, resident of rural town north of Houston

 

This was a tragedy, a mass shooting in a rural town in Texas where residents are accustomed to some of their neighbours shooting off weapons for no particular reason. Wilson Garcia and  his wife Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25, were concerned that a neighbour's shooting was disturbing their month-old son, awakening him from sleep. Mr. Garcia along with two others approached the neighbour's house to ask him to please shoot somewhat further from the house, to allow the crying baby to sleep in peace. 

The houses in the neighbourhood are distanced from each other, since each stands on an acre lot. The neighbour, 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza was incensed and refused the request. Mr. Garcia returned to his house where he and his wife were playing host to a group of 15 people, friends joining them on a church retreat.  On his own property, Mr. Garcia called police to report the disturbance. There were in fact, five calls asking for help and each time the police dispatcher informed help was on the way.

Some ten to 20 minutes since Mr. Garcia had walked back from his neighbour's house after his fruitless mission, he noted his neighbour running toward his house, reloading his weapon. When the gunman reached the Garcia home he began firing. Sonia Argentina was at the front door, and she was shot to death. In recollection, Mr. Garcia later said his neighbour appeared determined to kill everyone.

Daniel Enrique Laso, Mr. Garcia's nine-year-old son was shot dead, as well as  two women, killed trying to shield the Garcia baby and 2-year-old daughter from the carnage. One of the women, Mr. Garcia related, urged him to leave through a window "because my children were without a mother and one of their parents had to stay alive to take care of them", he explained.

Police searched for clues potentially leading them to the suspect, going door to door while Gov.Gregg Abbott posted a reward of $50,000 for the man's apprehension. The FBI and local officials raised the reward total to $80,000 for information leading to the killer. The AR-15-style rifle used by Oropeza in the shooting rampage was recovered by police. Other weapons were found in his home. 

Police interviewed the shooter's wife multiple times, and each time she denied knowing where he might be. In the end, he was discovered hiding in the house under a pile of laundry. Which led police to arrest and charge both the killer and his common-law wife. Francisco Oropeza, a Mexican national, had been deported previously from the U.S. His victims were originally from Honduras. Everyone is eager to live in the United States anticipating a more secure future for themselves and their families.

Aside from Sonia Argentina Guzman and Daniel Enrique Laso, the other three victims were Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21, Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, and Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18, all from Honduras, all  tragically wasted lives.

"My heart is with this … boy [and his family]."

"He was in my county, five people died in my county, and that is where my heart is – in my county, protecting my people to the best of our ability."

Local sheriff, Greg Capers of San Jacinto

Law enforcement in search of shooting suspect Francisco Oropeza near the scene where five people, including a child, were killed on April 29, 2023, in Cleveland, Texas. Go Nakamura/Getty

RCMP -- Royal Canadian Mounted Police -- Can Their Reputation Ever Be Redeemed?

"The overarching approach and response by the RCMP as an institution had many shortcomings. This must be addressed."

"The RCMP must finally undergo fundamental change that previous reports have called for."

Commissioner Leanne Fitch, Mass Casualty Commission, Portapique, N.S. Mass Shooting 

"The RCMP command group wrongly concluded that Portapique community members were mistaken when they reported seeing the perpetrator driving a fully marked RCMP cruiser. They were too quick to embrace an explanation that discounted the clear and consistent information that several eyewitnesses had provided independent of one another."

"Key information conveyed by 911 callers from Portapique was not accurately or fully captured within the RCMP incident activity logs, nor was it fully conveyed to first responders and the RCMP command group."

"The RCMP public communications during the evening of April 18, 2020, seriously understated the threat presented by the perpetrator and the associated risks to the public."

"As commissioners, we believe this lesson [gender-based, intimate-partner and family violence] to be the most important one to be learned from this mass casualty. Let us not look away again."

Report, Mass Casualty Commission

Twenty-two people died on April 18 and 19, 2020. Top row from left: Gina Goulet, Dawn Gulenchyn, Jolene Oliver, Frank Gulenchyn, Sean McLeod, Alanna Jenkins. Second row: John Zahl, Lisa McCully, Joey Webber, Heidi Stevenson, Heather O'Brien and Jamie Blair. Third row from top: Kristen Beaton, Lillian Campbell, Joanne Thomas, Peter Bond, Tom Bagley and Greg Blair. Bottom row: Emily Tuck, Joy Bond, Corrie Ellison and Aaron Tuck. (CBC)

 

Links were drawn by the commissioners in the report, between the mass shootings and the abuse of women by the killer. The first step, according to the report, in preventing mass violence is the recognition of danger in escalation inherent in all forms of violence, including gender-based, intimate-partner and family violence. Such forms of violence is to be declared an "epidemic". In that many mass violence events are initiated with an attack on a specific woman. 

 

The rampage that left 22 people dead around the small community of Portapique, extending to other nearby communities was carried out by a Halifax denturist, Gabriel Wortman, who owned a summer home in Portapique. He was well known to his neighbours and had fractious relationships with them. They knew him as a braggart and a wife-batterer. In the two days that comprised the murderous assault on people known to him, as well as with complete strangers, Gabriel Wortman faced little organized opposition.

The RCMP had failed to respond properly, professionally to the shooting of 22 people, among whom was an RCMP officer. On the afternoon of the second day of a continued mass slaughter, Gabriel Wortman was finally shot by two Mounties at an Enfield, Nova Scotia gas station, a full thirteen hours into his rampage. He had made use of a replica RCMP cruiser and wore the uniform of an RCMP officer. All information relayed by witnesses to the investigating RCMP officers, and all shrugged away.

 

After police shot and killed the gunman at a gas station in Enfield, N.S., they found five firearms in his possession, three handguns and two rifles. He obtained three of them in Houlton, Maine. (Mass Casualty Commission)

 

Considerable confusion  marked the event which began on April 18, 2020 and ended on April 19. Information reported to 911 failed to reach the officers consistently or quickly enough to be useful. Startlingly, though a system existed to alert the population, the RCMP failed to warn the public about the danger of an at-loose murderer. Random killings could have been averted had people been warned to remain indoors and not respond to any strangers or unknown knockers at the doors of their homes.

The commission concluded that the current 26-week training period is insufficiently adequate given the complex demands of policing. The training academy in Regina should, they recommend, be replaced with a three-year, degree-based model of education, similar to what exists in Finland for federal policing. The recommendation was made for the federal government to pass a law whose guiding principle would be "a prevention-first approach to public safety" with police as "collaborative partners".

Increased funding for rural mental health centres and front-line workers who deal with intimate-partner violence, another recommendation. An example was made of the experience of Brenda Forbes, a neighbour in Portapique who reported to the RCMP Wortman's violent abuse toward his common-law wife, Lisa Banfield. Despite that report nothing of any consequence ensued.

On the other hand, there were consequences for Brenda Forbes, with Wortman stalking, harassing and threatening her for years. Which eventually prompted her to leave the province for security to be found elsewhere. All five firearms found in Wortman's possession -- two semi-automatic handguns, a police-style carbine, a semi-automatic rifle and an RCMP-assigned pistol taken from the officer he killed -- were illegally obtained.

There was, as well, reference to the disturbing interactions between Nova Scotia senior RCMP officers and RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki who pressured them for the release of information about the types of weapons used in the shooting rampage to be publicly released. The local RCMP officials declined, citing the ongoing investigation. Commissioner Lucki informed them that the Public Safety Minister, Bill Blair urged that the information be made public.

The Nova Scotia RCMP personnel rankled at their impression of political interference in RCMP operational investigations.The commission found commissioner Lucki's comments to represent an error in judgement that constrained the relations between herself and senior provincial RCMP officials.

"Luki's audio recorded remarks about the benefits to police of proposed firearms legislation were ill timed and poorly expressed, but they were not partisan and they do not show that there had been attempted political interference", they commented nonetheless. Commissioner Lucki has since resigned her position. It will be a new commissioner who will doubtless shelve the report. 

 

The RCMP is badly in need of a resolute, intelligent chief operative to move it from its current state of incompetence to one that resurrects the force to a semblance of its former well-earned reputation of excellence in policing.

Friends, family and supporters of the victims of the mass killings in rural Nova Scotia in 2020 react at the beginning of the final report of the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry in Truro, N.S. on March 30, 2023. (Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press)

Heavily armed police inspect the area near a Jehovah's Witness church where several people have been killed in a shooting in Hamburg, northern Germany, on late March 9, 2023. DANIEL REINHARDT/AFP/Getty

 

"We do not know the motive for this terrible crime.[We are] deeply saddened by the horrific attack on our members at the Kingdom Hall in Hamburg after a religious service."

"Like the rest of the world, we were shocked and bewildered when we read (...) that the gunman reportedly bore `particular anger' not just toward the Jehovah's Witnesses but also toward other religious groups and his former employer."

"At the same time, our sincere thanks go to the police, who undoubtedly prevented even more deaths and injuries due to their quick intervention."

Jehovah's Witnesses, Germany 

Floral tributes and candles are placed outside the Jehovah's Witness building in Hamburg, Germany, Friday March 10, 2023, the site where several people were killed last night in a rampage during a Jehovah's Witness event. (Christian Charisius/dpa via AP)

"The anonymous person expressed the opinion in the letter that Philipp F. could be suffering from a mental illness, without, as the person wrote, this being medically diagnosed since Philipp F. would not seek medical treatment."

"Philipp F. supposedly harboured a particular anger toward religious followers especially toward Jehovah's Witnesses and his former employer."

"The entire situation also showed no indications for the officers that could have pointed to a mental illness. On the contrary, they had a further conversation with him about a variety of things, such as the furnishing of the flat and similar things, and at the end they went out and gave him a verbal warning for the minor offence."

"Even if the arms control colleagues pursued this tip-off professionally, and were personally convinced by the situation and assessment that they conducted, we must once again take a critical look at these procedures, above all the legal procedures and requirements for further measures."

Ralf Meyer head, Hamburg Police

Forensic experts worked at the scene through the night  Reuters

The gunman who fatally attacked members of the Jehovah Witnesses religious cult in Hamburg, Germany, killing four men and a pregnant woman and her baby in a violent rampage was in possession of a duly registered firearm, a semi-automatic pistol. This was a man unknown to police other than having once received an anonymous tip advising of the man's purported mental instability. Under German law sensibly, anyone with mental problems would not be given a license to own firearms.

The murderer cannot be questioned with respect to this motivation, nor tested for a mental illness. He turned his gun on himself after killing his targets at the Jehovah's Witness Hall. He was identified by police only as 35-year-old Philipp F. Officials revealed that the man had on previous occasions expressed his hatred of Jehovah's Witnesses. Once a member of the community, he had been raised in a religious family in southern Germany.

In a briefing by police and prosecutors the day following the Thursday attack, it was revealed that Philipp F. was the licensed owner of a Heckler & Koch P30 semi-automatic handgun. An amateur marksman, he reflected Germany's hunting and gun sports tradition.  Government data reveals over 940,000 registered private gun owners in the country within its population of 84 million.

Germany has 14,200 gun clubs with 1.35 million members. No links to terrorism was discovered for this man with no criminal record; information that would automatically have prevented him from legal gun ownership. The anonymous letter alleging disturbing behaviour on the part of the shooter was received in January, prompting two police officers to be tasked with an unannounced visit to his home in early February.

The police found the man to be cooperative, giving no indication of mental health problems. Police inspected his licence and checked to see that his weapon and ammunition were stored properly. While they were properly stored, a single projectile was found to be laid on top of the gun safe. A verbal warning was issued about the projectile and he apologized, placing the object in the safe.

Following a number of attacks in recent years, most recently after authorities uncovered the presence of an extremist network plotting an armed coup late last year, the government was pressured to tighten firearm ownership rules. Among tighter rules to be proposed is one whereby a psychological suitability test would be mandatory for prospective licence holders.

Germans aged 18 and over with no criminal history are able to obtain a permit to own a gun at the present time if they fullfil certain legal requirements regulating safe storage, and psychologically fit gun purchaser. Spot checks are undertaken on gun owners ensuring they adhere to requirements. All these and other safeguards cannot predict the direction that onetime sound-minded people will take under circumstances leading to a severe mental psychosis.

Which is when all restraints and inhibitions against lethal violence fray under the weight of a mind consumed by unreasoning hatred. That the man committed such an odious offence and in so doing had consigned himself to a future of incarceration as a dangerous offender that society must be protected against, indicates enough presence of mind in recognition of the act he had committed. He took immediate steps to relieve the justice system of an investigation, trial and costly lifetime imprisonment. His choice of self-administered punishment.

A body is removed from the Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall in Hamburg, Germany, March 10, 2023, after a shooting left eight people dead, including an unborn baby and the gunman, police said. Markus Schreiber/AP