Senior members of the RCMP have defended controversial communications decisions during the mass shooting in Nova Scotia, including the use of Twitter instead of an emergency alert, which according to one manager has resulted in more deaths.
Lia Scanlan, the RCMP’s director of strategic communications during the commotion that left 22 people dead, also told public investigators examining the tragedy that he saw no room for improvement in the communication strategy used. on April 18 and 19, 2020.
“It wouldn’t change anything at all,” Scanlan told investigators in an interview last fall. “I thought about it … I wouldn’t do anything different.”
Scanlan is scheduled to testify at the Truro Mass Victims Commission this week.
He told commissioners that he had implemented the RCMP’s provincial social media policy after joining the force as a civil servant in 2009. He said Twitter and Facebook have been effective tools for communicating. directly with the public about RCMP activities.
The use of Twitter to provide critical information about the shooter on April 19, 2020, and the timing of that information, have been points of discussion for the families of the victims. Some have said their loved ones would not have been checking Twitter early on a Sunday morning.
Families say an emergency alert sent long before on the replica of the gunman’s police cruise could have saved lives.
The only information the RCMP released on April 18 was that they were responding to a gun complaint in the rural community of Portapique and that people in the area had to stay inside.
The next morning, they tweeted that they were still at the scene of the crime involving an active shooter. But they did not reveal whether anyone had been injured or killed.
Cpl. Lisa Croteau sent this tweet on April 18, 2020. It was the first public mention by the RCMP of a situation in Portapique, NS (Twitter)
Scanlan said she used Twitter when she was sent to Moncton, NB, on June 5, 2014, to take charge of communication tasks during the hunt for the man who shot and killed three Mounties and hurt two more.
He said he relied on that experience when he started work on the morning of April 19, 2020.
“A lot of what we did at Codiac [N.B.] “It’s quiet,” he said. “I remember it was like hiding in my house, because most people hide with their cell phones and most people in Nova Scotia we had a lot of followers on Twitter, so I thought I was there with you, just to comfort them in some way. “
Scanlan, who told the investigation that he had been out of service due to an illness since January 2021, expressed frustration at the public criticism of the communication tactics used during the outrage.
He criticized both Prime Minister and then-Prime Minister Stephen McNeil for commenting on the lack of an emergency alert and “changing the narrative.”
“There’s no situation space, we’re not a human being attached to the police officer in the camp who is tweeting live from the camp, it doesn’t work that way,” he said. “The public no longer knows what the reality of communication is. That’s how it’s done. There’s no other way to do it that no one has invented yet. I don’t know how else you’ll find out. “Like … I can’t teleport him.”
Limited rural access
After the shootings, there was a shout from people pointing out the challenges of Internet access in rural Nova Scotia and that the vast majority of residents do not use Twitter.
In response to a question from researcher Krista Smith about trusting Twitter, given concerns about accessibility, Scanlan did not respond directly. Instead, he spoke in general terms about how the force uses Twitter and Facebook to increase more traditional communications.
“So the people of rural Nova Scotia who don’t follow Twitter and Facebook … all the news media follow our Twitter, so it’s like Twitter and Facebook surpass what already existed,” he said. “It’s the best way I can say that.”
Smith and his two colleagues did not follow up.
RCMP vehicles continued to block the crime scene in Portapique, NS, on April 26, 2020. (Olivier Lefebvre / CBC)
Michael Hallowes, an expert on emergency alerts, told the Mass Victims Commission during his May 11 testimony that social media is not a good option for public communication during an emergency.
“The problem with social media is that you have to follow, if it’s Twitter, the right channel to get the official word out, and therefore it can leave a lot of people out of communication,” he told the commission.
Delayed key information
Interviews and emails from various RCMP officers indicate that the force had confirmed the existence of a replica cruiser with full decals at 8 a.m. on April 19 and had distributed a photo to Nova Scotia law enforcement agencies. , included in the emergency response team traveling from New. Brunswick as a substitute.
Sgt. Steve Halliday, now retired, testified before the MCC on May 17 that he had asked another senior officer, the staff sergeant. Addie MacCallum, just before 8 a.m. to work with Scanlan to send the cruise information. Halliday told the commission he did not know why it took so long for the tweet to materialize.
MacCallum has not yet testified, but said in the investigation that he sent Scanlan photos of the cruise and then the gunman by email attached around 8 p.m. The photo of the suspect was posted on Twitter at 8:54 a.m.
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 above: 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)
The email with the gunman’s photo was sent at 8:02 a.m. and posted for investigation. Email with cruise photo not provided.
At 9:04 a.m., Scanlan sent an email to Public Affairs Officer Cpl. Jennifer Clarke to ask Clarke to “put something together” with the replica cruiser image. At 9:49 a.m., Clarke forwarded an email to Scanlan with the subject “APPROVED by Steve Halliday: Tweet for approval – please immediately.”
No record of a Scanlan response to Clarke is provided in the documents, and a timeline of social media activity provided by the RCMP shows that it was Clarke who finally tweeted at 10:17 a.m. .
Lost lives
Tom Bagley, Lillian Campbell, Heather O’Brien and Kristen Beaton were shot dead in the time between the RCMP receiving the photo of the cruise replica and the possible posting of the tweet.
O’Brien and Beaton, co-workers of the Victoria College of Nursing, had been texting friends and family about the shootings in Portapique the night before. Beaton had received the photo of the gunman the RCMP had tweeted an hour earlier.
During this time, several RCMP agents told the MCC that after learning of the cruise’s retort, they sent text messages or called their own relatives to tell them to stay home with the RCMP. doors closed.
During the September 2021 interview, Smith asked Scanlan about the delay in posting the replica cruise tweet.
Scanlan began responding and then Smith interrupted, speaking of an earlier tweet with a photo of the gunman that was posted just minutes after receiving the image. Investigators never returned to the question of the delayed tweet.
Ready Alert “Nothing”
The researchers did ask the Insp. Dustine Rodier, then the agent in charge of the dispatch center, about a brief conversation about using the emergency alert system.
Provincial Emergency Management Office staff told MCC investigators that they had contacted the RCMP to offer the use of the system on April 19, but that the gunman was shot dead while the content of the message was being discussed.
Rodier told investigators that the Alert Ready system was “not a thing” for the RCMP at the time of the shootings and said it would have been “catastrophic” to send one.
His second in command, Glen Byrne, took it a step further. The commander of the shipping center told investigators that the prepared alert system did not exist in Nova Scotia at the time of the shootings.
“It never existed in this province, no matter what anyone tells you,” he said in an interview on August 26, 2021. “Amber Alert existed. Alert Ready never existed.”
The province used the Alert Ready system a week before the shootings to urge new Scots not to meet for Easter, given the risk of spreading COVID-19.
Byrne said an alert issued on April 19 would not only have been catastrophic, but deadly.
“Would it have made a difference? Yes, it would have. More people would have died than during that incident,” he said. “We had people on the phone with whom we had to talk and who had a line of sight [of the replica police car] … If an Alert Ready had been issued, we would have been answering “What do I do? Am I allowed to leave?”
Hallowes refuted this prospect in his testimony, saying he has never seen evidence of this in international jurisdictions where alerts have been used. He said public education, clear operating procedures and well-crafted alerts are essential to avoid panic.
Policy change alert
Since then, the RCMP has received direct access to the alert system and trained officers on its use.
But Rodier told investigators that it is important that any future alert comes with plenty of advance notice so that communications centers can be prepared.
“It is so important to us that if there is even a possibility that an alert will come out, we will call another risk manager, we will ask for additional resources,” he said.
“We will make sure that all the other primary response points in the province know …