The RCMP says it learned from its mistakes during the Nova Scotia shooting spree and applied those lessons while responding to last week’s stabbing attacks in James Smith Cree Nation and the village of Weldon, Sask.
Deputy Commissioner Brian Brennan, who testified Friday before the public inquiry that’s looking into the Nova Scotia shootings, said “shortcomings” in how the force responded to the April 2020 killings were top of mind for him and other officers as they planned their response to the stabbing spree in north central Saskatchewan and during their search for suspects Myles and Damien Sanderson.
“When I got the phone call from Assistant Commissioner Blackmore, the commanding officer in Saskatchewan (responsible) for this incident, these are the things that she and I touched on,” Brennan said.
“These are the shortcomings in Nova Scotia. We need to apply these (lessons) immediately.”
The attacks in Saskatchewan left 11 people dead, including Damien Sanderson, and 18 people injured. Police initially charged Damien with multiple criminal offences related to the stabbings before his body was discovered near James Smith reserve.
According to Brennan, who’s the top-ranking RCMP officer responsible for Indigenous policing, communicating with the public was at the top of the list of things that went wrong in Nova Scotia and that were improved in Saskatchewan.
Rather than using Twitter to warn people, which is what happened in Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan RCMP issued a “dangerous person alert” to mobile phones in nearby areas telling residents about the stabbings and advising them to stay inside and to not approach suspicious people.
The alert was sent about an hour and a half after RCMP said they received the first 911 calls from James Smith reserve during the early morning hours of Sept. 4.
When police learned the suspects had stolen a vehicle, they updated the alert and sent it to the entire province. The alert included a description of the suspects and the vehicle they were believed to be using.
By contrast, the first warning during the Nova Scotia shooting spree was sent using Twitter. This message, which went out at 11:32 p.m. on a Saturday, said police were responding to a “firearms complaint.” It didn’t warn residents that police had already discovered multiple bodies in the community of Portapique or that the gunman was still on the loose.
During the eight hours that followed the initial tweet, no other messages or alerts were shared with the public.
“In Saskatchewan, I believe there were six or seven public alerts that went out updating the public … within early hours of the incident being reported,” Brennan told the inquiry.
Air support
Another major difference between the two tragedies was the level of air support used by police.
In Nova Scotia, the RCMP didn’t have access to a helicopter when first responding to the shootings because the force’s only helicopter in the Maritimes, which is based in Moncton, N.B., was out of service for routine maintenance at the time of the killings and there was no contingency plan for a back up.
Nova Scotia RCMP borrowed a helicopter from the provincial government, but that wasn’t for at least 10 hours after the first murders were reported.
In Saskatchewan, by contrast, multiple aircraft were used during the response and manhunt.
A police helicopter was seen overhead James Smith Cree Nation when police were pursuing a tip that Myles Sanderson might have been spotted there two days after the stabbing attacks. Saskatoon police also offered air support during the manhunt, tweeting that they spent “long flight hours” in the air helping RCMP with the search.
“That level of engagement with local police is something that’s quite different than what we saw in Nova Scotia,” said Adam Rodgers, a criminal defence lawyer who’s followed both incidents closely.
The need for openness and transparency is another lesson Rodgers thinks the RCMP may have learned in the fallout from the Nova Scotia shooting spree.
Unlike the April 2020 attacks, Saskatchewan RCMP and the provincial coroner’s office released a full list of victims’ names and photos.
Releasing these kinds of details was a point of internal strife for the RCMP during the Nova Scotia shooting spree.
Documents released through the public inquiry, including internal emails, show RCMP headquarters in Ottawa favoured releasing details about the victims to the media very early in the police response to the shootings because they deemed it a matter of “public interest.”
But Nova Scotia RCMP and their strategic communications team opposed releasing these details, citing issues related to next-of-kin notifications.
“I think the RCMP has learned a lesson that if you want to avoid the kind of scrutiny and inquiry that’s now taking place in Nova Scotia, one of the things you need to do is be more open and up front on the front end,” Rodgers said.
Response time
One similarity between the tragedies in Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan is the time it took police to respond to the first 911 calls.
In Nova Scotia, the first officers arrived in Portapique 25 minutes after Jamie Blair called 911 to report that her husband Greg had been shot. The call ended with Jamie barricaded in her room screaming just moments before the gunman killed her.
In Saskatchewan, two RCMP officers responded to a report of a stabbing at James Smith Cree Nation. The officers left the nearest detachment in Melfort, roughly 45 kilometers away, at the same time and arrived at the scene 35 minutes later, according to a police timeline of events.
A major reason for the amount of time it took to respond to these calls is that unlike urban policing, where officers are typically available to respond quickly, rural policing often involves driving long distances and being responsible for large geographical areas.
The officers who first responded to the Nova Scotia killing spree testified at the public inquiry that it wasn’t unusual for them to drive hundreds of kilometres during a single shift. They also said the distances they needed to cover between calls often meant significant delays in responding to incidents.
“In a province like Saskatchewan, that’s a big province, there’s relatively few forces you can draw on,” said Christian Leuprecht, a policing and security expert at Royal Military College in Kingston. “So every person that someone can spare is going to be of help.”
Leuprecht said a big difference between how police responded to the two attacks is the way RCMP worked with local police forces.
In Nova Scotia, the RCMP didn’t request help from local police forces during the manhunt and instead called upon Mounties from other parts of the province and neighbouring New Brunswick. This was despite the fact that several local forces had officers closer to the scene of the shootings.
But in Saskatchewan the RCMP worked closely with Saskatoon and Regina police from the earliest stages of the response and the manhunt that followed.
Leuprecht said this is likely due to the “interoperability” these forces share, meaning they’re used to working with each other and they have the same or very similar protocols and procedures.
That’s not the case in Nova Scotia, he said.
“The challenge in Nova Scotia was that you were dealing with a fairly small municipal police service in Truro, and the provincial policing standards (for local police) in Nova Scotia aren’t the same as the policing standards that the Mounties apply,” Leuprecht said.
One of the major things Leuprecht expects will come out of both the Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan tragedies is a closer examination of contracting policing in Canada and whether the RCMP is the best option for rural and Indigenous communities.
This is something Indigenous leaders in Saskatchewan and elsewhere in Canada have long been considering.
James Smith Cree Nation Chief Wally Burns, for example, said his community has been working to get its own police force for years.
During a press conference held last week, he said he wants the provincial and federal governments to fund a tribal police service for the community.
“We ask three things of the governments. We ask that we have our own tribal policing, we ask for awareness (about) addictions, we ask for treatment centres,” Burns said.
“The reason why we are pushing (for) tribal policing is things like this shouldn’t happen to any community.”