Security staff at a Halifax hospital warned of one man’s “travelling circus” after several reports of thefts and suspicious individuals in the hospital early this year.
Documents released through Freedom of Information (FOI) detail 17 incidents of a suspicious person or persons reported at Queen Elizabeth Health Sciences Centre (QEII) sites between Jan. 13 and March 30 of this year.
Because names and identifying information have been redacted, it’s difficult to say how many of those incidents involve the same person.
A number are connected to one man who is now facing numerous charges.
Shannon McInnis, 49, has been charged with committing indecent acts, theft, possession of stolen property, and committing an offence with his face masked, coloured, or disguised, according to police. Police allege he committed an indecent act on March 4, and again on March 23. The documents show a number of reports of a suspicious person in hospital buildings in late March.
The documents also detail several other disturbing events that do not appear to be connected to the charges McInnis is facing.
On March 18 just before 7 a.m., a nurse reported finding a person sleeping naked in a bed in the physio gym in the Dickson Building. The report says after the nurse told the individual that security had been called, they quickly dressed and apologized, leaving the area.
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The report says “both entrances to the department are locked after hours and were still locked when they came in” and that staff had reported “thefts in their department recently.”
This is one of several incidents in which security arrived on the scene after a suspicious person had left the area and a search turned up nothing.
Then, just after midnight, staff in the Centennial Building reported finding a suspicious person “sleeping in their family waiting room with what appeared to be a crowbar.”
The security report for March 19 says the individual was recognized as being someone who had been served a Protection of Property Act (PPA) notice, or a ban from the property. The staff took away a metal object, which turned out to be the blade of a hand planer, and the person was escorted off hospital property.
Security at the QEII hospital site has been provided by Paladin Security since late 2010. The current contract expires in 2020.
On March 28, Paladin’s site supervisor for the Victoria General wrote in an email that there had been “repeated interactions with a suspicious person” who had been “causing quite a bit of trouble,” including sleeping in units overnight.
“I’m producing a little briefing document … do you want me to send it over to you as well? Just in case (redacted) decides to take his travelling circus up the road,” Anthony Jocko wrote.
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The documents also show that on March 29, Jocko sent an email with a list of “gaps in our knowledge” that he planned to review with every team. That list includes an explanation of PPA orders, information about how to handle interactions with police, a review of proper search procedures, and when to escalate incidents to higher-ups.
The Nova Scotia Health Authority’s central zone manager of facility support, Sean Feeney, says he is satisfied that Paladin is doing the best job possible to keep the hospitals safe. He also says there were no issues with the staffing complement in March.
Feeney says while specific cases raise concerns, changes have been made to step up hourly patrols, for instance.
“It comes down to information, so the minute an event like that is identified, it needs to be passed on to security immediately. We dispatch every security officer that we have, so it certainly is a concern but these are large buildings,” he said.
Feeney adds that all staff are being told they need to call the internal reporting line, and not the direct security line, to report incidents.
“We rely a lot on the staff in the areas to report any suspicious individuals,” he said.
On April 15, another report of a suspicious person at the Halifax Infirmary was described as a “cat and mouse game” by security officials.
The redacted summary of an incident report on that date details an hours-long search for an individual on the morning of April 14, beginning with a report of a suspicious person at the Halifax Infirmary’s information desk. The person was asking for clean needles and “became agitated and began violently smashing (their) fists down on the front of the desk.”
Security searched the entire building but were unable to find anyone matching the description. Then a suspicious person was reported in the Veterans Memorial Building. The staff there reported that someone was trying to open a locker and was rummaging through cabinets behind a reception desk. The report says another room was found “in a state of disarray.”
“Behind the reception desk, several of the cabinet doors were hanging open and various items were scattered on the floor. In room 2531 all of the lockers on the west side of the room that were not locked were hanging open with their contents scattered on the floor in front of them.”
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The report lists more messes in other rooms, including cereal boxes, pots, plates and sugar packets strewn about and items out of place. In the report summary, it’s noted that “there were apparently many keys left in highly accessible areas in reception that would give access to almost the entire area.”
The suspicious person reportedly left the building before a search was complete and security never contacted them.
Feeney says keys are to be kept with the person responsible and not left for others to take. He calls the incident a “one-off.”
— With files from Graeme Benjamin.
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