Ontario watchdog to review case of officers who shot at fire hall during N.S. mass killings
Special Investigations Unit says it will examine new evidence that emerged during public inquiry
An Ontario agency that investigates police conduct has agreed to review the case of two RCMP officers who opened fire outside a Nova Scotia fire hall in 2020 during the search for the man who murdered 22 people during a rampage through several rural communities.
In a news release Friday, the Special Investigations Unit said it was asked this spring by Nova Scotia's police watchdog to look into whether new information about the April 19, 2020, incident outside the Onslow fire hall emerged during the public inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass killings.
The agency said it has concluded there is new evidence, and it will review it to determine whether it would impact the 2021 decision by Nova Scotia's Serious Incident Response Team to clear the two officers of criminal wrongdoing.
The two officers have said they began firing their carbine rifles after they pulled up to the fire hall because they had spotted a man who fit the description of the suspect, who was wearing a Mountie uniform at the time.
But the man they fired at was instead an emergency management worker for the local county who was wearing a safety vest. He was not injured.
The Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) concluded that the officers should not face criminal charges, saying the Mounties had reasonable grounds to believe the man outside the hall was the killer.
Two Onslow firefighters and a resident who were inside the fire hall at the time later testified at the inquiry that they were terrified, and spent an hour hiding inside because they thought the gunman was outside. The emergency management official said the same thing in an interview with commission investigators.
Firefighters Darrell Currie and Greg Muise have long criticized the decision by SIRT not to lay charges against the two Mounties involved.
"I was ecstatic, my hands were shaking, my heart was racing. It was great news," Currie told CBC News in an interview following the announcement.
"... I think the final SIRT report that was released, it was just a narrative of the bad day that those two officers were having and I can understand that, it was little to no actual evidence to clear them on the charges, whatever they could be charged with."
Muise said he's looking for the truth of what happened that day and that the officers would face some repercussions.
"I think they got away with something other than what they said and hopefully it'll bring us relief from what happened that day."
During the public inquiry, a internal RCMP memo was filed as evidence that criticized an expert report prepared for SIRT examining whether the officers' use of force was appropriate. The memo said the report contained multiple "inaccuracies and omissions."
The Mass Casualty Commission, which conducted the public inquiry, released its 3,000-page report this spring.
The Special Investigations Unit said its Nova Scotia counterpart asked for the outside review "in the interests of avoiding any potential or perceived conflict of interest."
The two officers, Const. Dave Melanson and Const. Terry Brown, testified at the public inquiry they were sorry for the fear they caused that day, but said they had believed the man they spotted was the killer and stood by their decision to open fire.
The killer, Gabriel Wortman, was shot and killed by police about an hour later at a gas station in Enfield, N.S.
With files from Blair Rhodes