Chief Dan Kinsella took the stand Thursday afternoon before the Mass Casualty Commission that led the inquiry into the April 2020 massacre, where a gunman killed 22 people across the province. The webcast of the proceedings can be seen here. Commission counsel Rachel Young asked Kinsella to expand on the long list of questions they had sent to Halifax police last month, including the issue of the Alert Ready system. When asked if Halifax police would have sent out an alert about the gunman if he had crossed into their jurisdiction, Kinsella said the best time to consider a public alert would be “much earlier” in the 13-hour shooting. “There were various points in time where I think it could have been used,” Kinsella said. “It’s really inconceivable that we hadn’t thought of that.” Kinsella added that HRP would still have weighed the situation and the impact a notification would have on the public and officers, but it would be an option “especially if we had gotten a call from EMO,” he said. At the time of the massacre, all Nova Scotia police agencies were required to send an alert request and accompanying text to the provincial Office of Emergency Management. EMO provincial executive director Paul Mason told the committee that one of their staff tried to speak to the Mounties on the morning of April 19 to check if they wanted an alert to be sent out, but could not get through to anyone. Eventually the staff member called an officer he knew and got through that way. At 11:20 a.m., the RCMP called the EMO to request the use of the alert system, but Mason said they did not suggest any message. A short time later, the gunman was killed. Instead of requesting an alert, the RCMP tweeted late on April 18 about a firearms complaint in Portapique. They were back on Twitter the next day around 8am. AT to report that this was an active shooter incident. The RCMP did not release the fact that the gunman was driving a fake police car until 10:17 a.m. of April 19. An image of the vehicle was posted on Twitter. Regional police investigators sit outside the Atlantic Denture Clinic on April 20, 2020, in Dartmouth, NS The clinic was owned by the Nova Scotia mass shooter. (Tim Krochak/Getty Images) Although an alert had never been used for policing in Nova Scotia before the shooting, Kinsella said he knew it could be used for active shooter situations. Many RCMP employees and officers said they had no idea the national Alert Ready system used for major weather events, or Amber Alerts, could also be used for policing. Nova Scotians immediately began asking why the Mounties chose to post information on Twitter instead of using the alert system, which would have sent information to people’s cell phones. Many have pointed out that internet service is poor in central and northern Nova Scotia and Twitter usage is not widespread. Family members of some of the nine people killed on April 19, 2020, said their loved ones could have been saved had they known an active shooter was driving a replica police cruiser on the loose. The Halifax Regional Police and RCMP have since been trained in the Alert Ready system and are now able to issue their own alerts directly. The attorney for the family of victim Gina Goulet, who was killed in her Shubenacadie home on the morning of April 19, 2020, shortly before the gunman was shot by police, asked Kinsella why Halifax police officers couldn’t go out on their own. help the manhunt. Twenty-two people died on April 18 and 19, 2020. Top row from left: Gina Goulet, Dawn Gulensin, Jolene Oliver, Frank Gulensin, Sean McLeod, Alana 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) Kinsella said they were preparing what to do if the gunman crossed into their jurisdiction, but until then they had to wait for requests for help from the RCMP who were responsible for the response. “You can’t just get in your car and cruiser and drive to the scene — you could, but it’s not good police work to do that,” Kinsella said. The chief said he personally offered assistance to the Chief in Chief. Janis Gray, who was the head of the Halifax RCMP at the time, around 8 a.m. on April 19, but never received a response. When Lenehan asked Kinsella why the Halifax Police Emergency Response Team (ERT) was not deployed closer to Truro, Kinsella again said he had not received a request from the RCMP. “You can’t just send them away,” Kinsella said. But Halifax Regional Police emergency response team leader Charles Nagle told the commission he was disappointed to be denied extra members and had always assumed the force would deal with an active shooter “with everything we had.”
The Halifax officer wanted more resources
In an interview last September, Naugle told the committee he wanted to bring in eight more emergency response team members around 9:30 a.m. on April 19 to bring their team to full strength at more than 16 members “for the investigation and others pending” — which was denied. “Never in my life would I have thought I’d have to try and figure out how to get permission to call the resources sitting in the locker room,” Naugle said. Soon after, the gunman killed Lillian Campbell in Wentworth, and Naukle said that ERT members he had indeed formed teams and took to the streets with instructions to prevent the gunman from entering Halifax. Naugle said some members went to Halifax Airport and Fall River, while others were at Enfield Grand Station when the gunman was killed. Kinsella said Thursday that he stands by the decision the officer on duty would have made at the time given how quickly things were moving, but it’s always a good idea to look at what could have been done better. “Maybe there are some recommendations that come out of what they’re going to say, based on this situation, we need a certain number of regular officers on duty at all times,” Kinsella said.
The Chief has “refused” to meet with the committee until now
Kinsella had declined multiple committee requests for an interview and testified only under subpoena, according to documents filed Thursday. An email from commission adviser Rachel Young to Halifax city attorney Andrew Gough on July 13 said the fact that Kinsella and other senior HRP officers declined to be interviewed by the commission “is a missed opportunity” to contribute to a discussion around public safety. Up to that point, Young said the committee had tried to arrange an interview with Kinsella several times, but he canceled in March and April due to scheduling issues and not receiving questions in time. Young said that on June 7, a day after he personally attended Truro Police Chief David McNeil’s deposition, Kinsella canceled an interview scheduled for June 10. The committee had sent questions to Kinsella earlier that month. “No other leader declined to meet with the committee,” Young wrote, adding that although Kinsella said he would provide written responses to some questions by July 13, he had not. Young said that to ensure a timely response, she was sending the written questions in the form of a subpoena with a seven-day deadline. Commissioner Michael MacDonald also issued a subpoena for Kinsella to appear on Thursday for oral testimony. Kinsella then answered the 86 questions the committee sent in Young’s email, as well as a series of follow-up questions.
Tension between RCMP and Halifax police
Coordination between RCMP and municipal police forces during mass shootings has been a point of contention during the investigation. The committee heard that Halifax Regional Police played various roles in the mass shooting response on the night of April 18 and 19, 2020, including monitoring the dental clinic and the gunman’s apartment in Dartmouth. They also brought family members of the gunman’s wife, Lisa Banfield, to a safe location early on the morning of April 19, and shared photos of the mock RCMP cruiser with the RCMP just after 7:15 a.m. of that day. In an internal Halifax Regional Police email from April 29, 2020, Staff Sgt. Donald Steinburg said there were 18 officers on duty in the Integrated Criminal Intelligence Division alone as of 6:45 a.m. on the Sunday of the mass shooting. The RCMP asked the department to work with the Halifax Regional Police Emergency Response Team to gather Banfield’s family members. Emergency crews were also eventually dispatched to the Irving Big Stop in Enfield, where the gunman was shot and killed. The gunman was arrested by police near a gas station in Enfield, NS, around 11:40 a.m. local time. on April 19, 2020. (Eric Woolliscroft/CBC) Steinburg also said the province’s Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) asked HRP investigators and the forensics division to handle the Big Stop scene after the gunman’s death. ID members were eventually redirected to other crime scenes, Steinburg said. As of noon on April 19, Steinburg said Halifax police had about 50 officers assisting with various duties. In a revised wellness report of 24 NS RCMP commissioned officers or civilian equivalents completed in September 2021, many said there was an ongoing “battle” over operational control and funding between the Halifax Regional Police and the Nova Scotia RCMP. Several participants also reported that despite Mounties doing their best to be “partners” in this integrated model, “HRP leadership did everything they could to undermine and break .
