Dykens, from nearby Masstown, NS, heard from a friend that a shooting had taken place in Portapique where many were killed and the gunman had not been arrested – but knew nothing about his virtual cruiser. “He smiled a little when he shook his hand and from the way he sat in the car I could tell he was a pretty big man,” Dickens told CBC. Dickens is one of at least 44 people who crossed paths with the perpetrator, saw a copy of the police cruiser as he passed through the countryside, or lost sight of him within hours of the start of the killings in Portapique. The gunman made his way to Plains Road in Debert the next morning. Gerry Dykens is one of at least 44 people who were shot, or briefly shot, by Portapique and Debert during a mass shooting in Nova Scotia in April 2020. (Steve Lawrence / CBC)
As Nova Scotians learn more about what happened during the mass shootings in April 2020 through a public inquiry, details from various witnesses show how close dozens of people, including families with children, got to the gun. There were others who reported seeing a car that may have been armed on April 19, but the time has not been verified by police. Others may not have mentioned it at all, ignoring the significance of what they had seen. The man Dykens passed just before 10 a.m. near the post office and elementary school in Debert on Plains Road was the gunman, disguised as Mountie. Shortly afterwards, the perpetrator killed Kristen Beaton and Heather O’Brien. Dickens knew both women. Believing the gunman was a real officer, he said he would have pulled to the side of the road if the lights in the cruiser had been turned on. “So that haunts you a little bit,” Dickens said. Twenty-two people died on April 18 and 19. Top row from left: Gina Gulett, Down Gulencin, Joulen Oliver, Frank Gulencin, Sean McLeod, Alana Jenkins. Second row: John Zahl, Lisa McCully, Joey Webber, Heidi Stevenson, Heather O’Brien and Jamie Blair. Third row from the 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)
While Dykens said he feels lucky and his thoughts are always with the 22 victims who were killed during the 13-hour riot and their families, he knows full well that he could also have died that morning. “You think about it. There is no doubt about it,” he said. Dickens joined RCMP’s advisory line with his account a few days after filming. An officer took his brief statement over the phone, but Dykens’s account is not on the official schedule published by the commission. By mid-April 19, the RCMP had posted only a few details about the gunman and his vehicle via Twitter, and many people in the area had little idea of ​​the danger. Some took to the streets. “It could have been a lot worse,” Dickens said. Details of the close calls are presented in interviews, radio logs and 911 transcripts compiled by the Mass Accident Committee leading the investigation. The committee is tasked with examining the events of April 18 and 19, 2020, when Gabriel Wortman killed 22 people, including Beaton, who was pregnant. Aerial photo of Portapique taken in May 2020. (Mass Accident Committee)
For about 45 minutes, the gunman acted in Portapique and killed 13 of his neighbors, another 18 people had close conversations with him, including anxious members of the community investigating the blasts and shootings. Former Portapique resident David Faulkner happened to pass by the area with his partner and their daughter when they saw flames burning in the sky. He decided to turn to the community to check on a friend and wondered if a fire had gotten out of hand. Faulkner could not reach his friend and as he was leaving the subdivision his vehicle encountered another car that met the gunman. Faulkner heard two “explosions or gunshots” and saw both cars take off quickly. Inside one of them was Andrew MacDonald, who was shot while his wife, Kate, was calling 911. Faulkner followed slowly until the cars reached the intersection and followed the McDonald’s right onto Portapique Beach. To do so, he had to pass a few meters from a “police car”, which had stopped opposite the intersection and had no lights on. “It seemed weird, so we just turned the corner and went on for some reason. Why, I have no idea. I’m glad I did it now,” Faulkner later told police.

The neighbor was watching from the street

Another man, Bjorn Merzbach, saw the gunman race alongside the MacDonalds as he leaned behind his truck with a gun in his hand outside his Orchard Beach Drive home in Portapique. After talking to Andrew MacDonald later, Merzbach said what scared him the most was realizing how long the gunman had been in front of the house of Dawn and Frank Gulenchyn, one of the couples killed that night. “Maybe he just didn’t think he had time to go back on my way or he knew I would be better prepared,” Merzbach said. Dean Dilman may have lost his gun in just a minute. The committee suggested the gunman leave Portapique via a private back road (which locals call blueberry field road) and then continue on Brown Loop Road to Highway 2 between 22:41 and 22:45. Dilman, who has a background in forest firefighting, came to control the fires. He was parked in the southwest corner of Brown Loop in front of the road with the blueberries from about 22:45 to 22:55 and did not report seeing his gunman or vehicle. “I was probably sitting on the rails of his tires,” Dilman said in an interview with the committee.

Armed, he heads for Debert

After leaving Portapique, the gunman’s cruise was recorded on surveillance video at the Great Village at 10:51 p.m. and finally turned into the Debert Business Park at 11:12 p.m. On the way to Debert and the community that night, there were seven people who saw the gunman or just lost him, including two people on Station Road and RCMP officers Paul Cheesman and Marc Blinn. Two young men listening to music were hanging out at a soccer field outside Ventura Drive and saw the armed police cruiser leading into circles around midnight. They later told police how strange this was.

The “little voice” told the woman to turn around

After stopping overnight in Debert, the gunman drove to the home of Sean McLeod and Alanna Jenkins on Hunter Road in Wentworth. There they were shot and killed and the gunman set fire to the house. Two people there had close calls, including April Dares, who heard a dog barking, followed by gunshots. He was worried that the dog had been hurt, so around 7:30 p.m. drove her truck north on Hunter Street. He had stopped just two blocks below McLeod-Jenkins’s house when a “small voice” just said, “Okay, go home.” “And I heard, thank God,” Dares told RCMP. Around 9:15 a.m. Dares spotted the gunman as he was leaving the area, as was another neighbor, Jodi McBurney, minutes later. MacBurnie was standing outside his home on the phone with the RCMP talking about how worried he was that he could not reach McLeod. The cruiser then drove “very slow”, which he found strange. “I told my wife something strange because I was talking on the phone with RCMP and… they do not know there was RCMP in my way,” MacBurnie said. “We were just scared at that point.”

The gunman is moving through Wedworth

The gunman then crossed Wedworth and shot Lillian Campbell at Highway 4 as she walked. Campbell’s neighbor, Reginald Jay, had already seen the cruiser earlier that morning, before his wife, Mary-Ann Jay, heard the gunshot and saw the perpetrator walk away around 9:30 p.m. after killing Campbell. Driving south on Highway 4 from Wentworth, the gunman dodged the Cpl. Colchester RCMP Colney Rodney Peterson enters the house of Adam and Carole Fishers. As he passed the gunman, Peterson was forced to smile and had only a few seconds to decide what to do. “I try not to commit suicide here. In my head, he has a gun, he will use it,” Peterson said. “Your heart goes to your throat.” Watch video from Dave’s service center on Plains Road in Debert taken at 11:09 p.m. on April 18, 2020 shows what the investigation believes to be the virtual cruiser of the armed. (Committee on Mass Accidents)
But by the time Peterson turned and ran south on Highway 4, he had lost sight of the gunman who had turned on Fisers Road. Carole Fisher saw the gunman’s car getting up and when she got out she recognized him immediately. She told her husband, she called 911 at 9:48 a.m. and ran to hide in the bathtub. “I thought I was going to die,” Carole later told police. “I just felt that help was not coming. And I was so scared.” But the gunman left just two minutes after his arrival and returned to Debert. A graphic depicting the location of the 44 close conversations that people had with the gunman during the mass shootings in Nova Scotia in April 2020. (CBC)
Aside from Portapique, the closest conversations with the gunman took place along Plains Road in Debert around 10 a.m. when he killed Beaton and O’Brien. At least 12 people saw the gunman or lost him in seconds, including Dickens. Leroy Crowe was driving east on Plains Road with his two children in the car when he noticed an RCMP cruiser in his mirror, but thought it was strange to have a black push bar in the front. “My young husband tried to turn around and I said, ‘Don’t stare at the police,’” Crow said. Terry Budd had just completed a 12-hour shift nearby …