The RCMP officer recounted the “split second” decision he and his partner made before firing their rifles at what turned out to be a citizen on April 19, 2020, in a lengthy public interview with the public response to the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 22 people, including a pregnant woman and a mountain. “I was sure he was – if he left, he would go and kill more people, because I had no doubt in my mind; that this was the guy we were looking for,” Brown told Massacre Commission investigators on March 10, 2022, according to new details released by the survey on Monday. Brown said he was unaware that the fire station was being used as a comfort center for people who were told to leave their homes in Portapique, NS, the tiny community 28 miles away where 13 people were killed last night. He also told the investigation that he did not know that a Mountie colleague from Pictou County had been sent there to provide security that morning. The gunman was driving a replica of an RCMP cruiser and was disguised as a Mountie. Brown said Const’s associate. Dave Melanson tried to reach his colleagues by radio after the unmarked Nissan Altima brakes, less than 100 meters from the fire station, went off to alert them that they had seen an RCMP cruiser and thought it was Gabriel Wortman. the man wanted for murder. Two RCMP officers started firing in the direction of the Onslow Belmont Fire Department. (CBC)
Brown said he did not even notice a second person in the room, the real RCMP officer sitting in his patrol car and pointing his rifle at another man in the parking lot wearing a vest. “And he looks at me and then falls behind the car and I was sure he was taking a gun,” Brown told the investigation. We shout, “Show us your hands.” And this is happening very, very fast. “ He said he started firing when the man started running towards the building and afterwards, the “tunnel vision” of the rally he experienced meant that he did not hear his own rifle go out or realized that his partner also shot. The man wearing the yellow and orange safety vest, David Westlake, was the emergency management coordinator for Colchester County and was at the fire department to help the IDPs connect the IDPs with the support provided by the Red Cross. Surveillance footage recorded outside the fire station shows Const. Terry Brown and Const. Dave Melanson left the parking lot less than five minutes after they started firing. (Surveillance cameras of the Onslow Belmont Fire Department)
Westlake, who spoke to commission investigators last June, has a different recollection of the same moments when he said he was walking behind Pictou County cruiser and a gray vehicle stopped in the parking lot. “I never heard ‘police’ or ‘show your hands.’ I heard “come down”. “And I’m adamant to what I’ve heard so far,” Westlake said in an interview. “I remember one shot that sounded like a sound boom and then another that was very loud and I’m moving right now.” Brown fired four rounds and Melanson one, according to investigative documents. Const. Dave Gagnon was placed outside the fire department to provide security on April 19, 2020. He got out of his cruiser and raised his hands at 10:21 a.m. after two fellow RCMP officers started firing into the room. (Surveillance cameras of the Onslow Belmont Fire Department)
Westlake said he ran inside shouting “shots” and fell down as he entered the fire department to pick up the portable radio he had dropped. It would be hours before he realized he was Mountis’s target. Const. Dave Gagnon, a Pictou County officer sitting in his parked vehicle, tried to contact police by radio. He also shouted at them and they finally dropped their weapons, he told the Nova Scotia Emergency Response Team, the police surveillance service that investigated the shooting in the fire department. It was found that all three officers had problems with their radio due to the “bugging”, a problem that arises from the attempt of many people to speak at the same time. On Monday, the public inquiry heard the sound that Gagnon was able to transmit. “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey … Who are you shooting at? It’s Gagion,” he said.

4 men hid for an hour

In the room, two firefighters were assisting Richard Ellison, a man from Portapique whose son was killed last night. Fire Chief Greg Muise and Deputy Chief of Staff Darrell Currie previously told the CBC they had been hiding behind tables for an hour after hearing gunshots outside their room, thinking the real gunman was outside and heard someone knocking on one of the hall doors. Sources: Mass Casualty Commission / Twitter (CBC)
Muise and Currie told CBC at the beginning of the public hearing that the shooting had taken place caused permanent trauma and remain frustrated that no one from the RCMP ever apologized or explained why shots were fired. Muise, Currie and Ellison testified together at a committee in Halifax on Monday and told investigators they feared for their lives. “I remember thinking, ‘How am I going to die?’

‘They are all ok;’

Westlake was the only one of the four to speak to a Mountie in the minutes following the shooting. He said Gagnon and the man who later learned he was Melanson entered the room for a while. The watch video shows that he was in the room for 30 and 17 seconds respectively. “I heard someone come in and say, ‘Are they all okay?’ Has anyone been hurt “or anything. And I replied,” No. “All four of us are fine,” said Westlake. Gagnon, in an interview with the Troubleshooting Team later on April 19, 2020, said after checking that the team was OK, he told the other two officers: “Everyone is fine in there.” Westlake and firefighters said no one had explained who fired at them or why. In Halifax on Monday, Muise said they felt “hostage.” He said things would have been different if the Mounties had identified themselves and announced that the team was safe. “You know, ‘We’re RCMP, we’re here, we’m sorry, what’ s going on in there, we’ll be back to talk to you. ‘Nothing. We had nothing, as they pushed us under a rug and we left,’” he said. Surveillance video from the Onslow Belmont Fire Department on April 19, 2020, shows Brown in the back of the building. The time code in the watch video is 10 minutes fast. (Committee on Mass Accidents)
Brown said he circled the building, unsure if the real gunman was on the property, and then learned that everyone inside was fine. “I was upset. I was not crying or upset that way. I was just upset because I knew this was a big deal. We just fired our guns. I never fired my gun while I was on duty, except to put down an animal. He said in an interview with the committee. Surveillance video from the room shows Brown and Melanson being in the room for less than five minutes. They left to continue the pursuit of the gunman. Meanwhile, the four men in the room continued to hide and learned that the RCMP had posted on Twitter that Wortman, who had so far killed 19 people, had been located in the Onslow-Belmont area at the same time as the shootings. . At one point, Westlake looked outside and did not see Gagnon’s car – which the officer had removed from the front of the building – so he told the team they had to move between fire engines to better protect themselves, he explained. to the commission’s investigators. They did not leave the room for about an hour and after calling people to find out what was going on.

Damage $ 40,000

Brown and Melanson left behind nearly $ 40,000 worth of damage, including a fire truck, a memorial and an electronic license plate at the end of the parking lot near where they fired. “You could see where the bullets went through that door, as if they were not even there. If they hit one of us, it would be our end. Great time,” Ellison testified Monday. Westlake told the commission’s investigators that in the weeks following the incident, he went to the RCMP to seek redress for the damage to the fire room and continued to work with them. helping to find a missing childand did research to check how Gagnon was.
“I fought very hard with the RCMP to pay the bills, to get rid of the scars in the fire room, because a lot of people were passing by and looking at it,” Westlake said. Greg Muise, Chief of Onslow Fire Department, Darrell Currie, Portapique Deputy Chief of Staff and Richard Ellison, left to right, answer questions about the incident in the Onslow Belmont Fire Department during the Mass Casualty Commission’s investigation into 11 2022. (Andrew Vaughan / Canadian Press)
But he told the investigation that although he made outward jokes about his experience at the fire station and tried to treat it with humor, he had his tax. “For 30 years I witnessed many injuries, but… that was more than I could ever expect. And it took me a long time to say it was not my fault it happened. And I really do not care if anyone sees me as broken… “I do not want this to happen to anyone else,” said Westlake. He said it was difficult for him to understand – knowing that the officers would be aiming at his center of mass – why the two officers chose to use deadly force based on his view of something like …