By Canadian Press

N.S. mass shooting inquiry: Communications official admits warning was delayed

Jun 8, 2022 | 10:36 AM

HALIFAX — A senior RCMP official broke down in tears today when she told a public inquiry that communications procedures she used to alert the public to an active shooter led to a crucial delay during the killer’s rampage.

Lia Scanlan’s testimony stands in sharp contrast to what she told inquiry investigators last September, when she insisted she would not have done anything differently on the morning of April 19, 2020.

Scanlan, who was director of strategic communications for the Nova Scotia RCMP at the time of the mass shooting, said today that communications procedures had to change.

That was her response when asked why it took the Mounties more than three hours to warn the public that the killer was driving a car that looked exactly like an RCMP cruiser.

The inquiry has heard the suspect had killed 13 people in Portapique, N.S., the night before, but the public was only told through Twitter that police were investigating a firearms complaint.

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It wasn’t until early the next morning that police realized the suspect had resumed killing people in northern and central Nova Scotia, where another nine people died that day.

Though the RCMP had obtained a photo of the car at 7:27 a.m., a tweet warning the public about the vehicle wasn’t sent out until 10:17 a.m. — a delay that has been the focus of much speculation and public outrage, given that four people died during the time frame.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 8, 2022. 

The Canadian Press