The Candice Malcolm Show - Unanswered questions about the Nova Scotia shooter

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm with the Candice Malcolm Show, and today I want to talk about the Nova

00:00:10.980 Scotia shooting and really try to unpack some of the questions that remain. So this is what

00:00:16.360 we know so far. The act of evil, the killing, the shooting rampage was carried out by 51-year-old

00:00:23.020 Gabrielle Wortmann. The killing spree lasted for 13 hours from the evening of Saturday,

00:00:27.600 April 18th to the morning of Sunday, April 19th. Wortmann shot and killed at least 22 people.

00:00:34.840 This includes a pregnant woman and veteran RCMP officer Heidi Stevenson. He also set fire to at

00:00:41.520 least five buildings, and his killing spree spanned across at least 16 crime zones that RCMP police are

00:00:49.200 currently investigating. So there's a lot of questions that remain. It's going to be a long

00:00:53.000 time before we get answers. But to help sort of fill in some of the gaps and answer some questions

00:00:57.340 that I have, I wanted to bring in True North Fellow and my friend Leo Knight. Leo has an extensive

00:01:03.040 career as a former police officer in investigations and as a security expert. So Leo, thank you so much

00:01:09.720 for joining us today. Very welcome, Candice. So I think one of the main questions that really stands

00:01:15.660 out at this point, Leo, is the fact that the RCMP on Monday during their press conference refused to

00:01:21.320 answer some pretty basic questions. The main one being whether or not Wortmann had a possession

00:01:27.020 and acquisition license. It's a pretty straightforward question, and it would be pretty simple for the

00:01:32.300 RCMP to answer. All it would take, I presume, would be looking it up in a database. And I imagine

00:01:37.120 the RCMP would have done that as soon as Wortmann became a suspect or a person of interest on Saturday

00:01:42.300 night or Sunday morning. So why wouldn't they answer this straightforward question? What's there to

00:01:47.080 hide? You're entirely correct, Candice, in that a simple lookup on the police information computer

00:01:55.060 would give that information quite easily. The commissioner of the RCMP seems to me to be

00:02:02.640 spectacularly uninformed when she went into that press conference, and that surprises me as well.

00:02:08.620 Having said that, the only reason I can think of that they wouldn't give that information up

00:02:12.960 is that if it didn't fit the political narrative. Justin Trudeau has said that he wants to bring in

00:02:19.180 more gun control, and if the weapons that were used on that evening were obtained legally, that just

00:02:25.680 wouldn't fit the narrative. If they were obtained legally, then they would have to try and explain how

00:02:31.300 come they haven't tightened up the acquisition process. And I think they're just politically

00:02:37.620 uncomfortable questions for the Liberals at this point in time.

00:02:40.480 Well, that's a really interesting response, and I think you're definitely right. But one of the

00:02:45.000 things that, again, sticks out or raises even more questions is that the RCMP commissioner is

00:02:50.060 supposed to be independent. They're not partisan. They're not part of the governing party. They're

00:02:54.580 not Liberals. And so that's why it was really bizarre, because, you know, you're thinking in the

00:02:59.740 greater scheme of the Canadian gun control regime and whether, you know, the question of whether these

00:03:05.120 firearms were obtained legally or illegally is incredibly important. Whether this individual

00:03:09.460 was licensed or not is incredibly important, and the unwillingness of the RCMP commissioner to answer

00:03:16.220 their question. We have a clip, which I'm going to play right now. And so you can see a reporter

00:03:20.220 asking, again, the straightforward question, was this guy licensed? And the RCMP commissioner,

00:03:25.240 this is the second time she's asked a question. The first time she didn't reply. She didn't provide an

00:03:29.880 answer. Then the second time she's asked, it's her being asked directly. She turns to Minister Blair,

00:03:35.840 a partisan Liberal appointee by Justin Trudeau, and he jumps in, which again suggests the politicization

00:03:43.720 of this question. If you could release, tell us whether or not that individual did have or did not

00:03:51.820 have a firearm license. Tim, as we've indicated, the RCMP are in the earliest hours and days of this

00:04:00.260 investigation. And it's a complex one. And I think it's quite appropriate for them to be careful

00:04:05.580 about the release of information until they've had the opportunity to verify it and confirm it.

00:04:10.140 And so it is, I think, inappropriate. And the commissioner would quite naturally be very reluctant

00:04:15.080 to reveal details of that investigation until it is complete. And so I would urge Canadians to be patient

00:04:21.880 with the RCMP as they do a very difficult but very important job for us in getting all the facts,

00:04:26.900 in confirming their evidence, making sure that all of the steps to preserve that evidence are

00:04:32.280 taken. Canadians deserve answers. The families and the victims of these terrible crimes deserve

00:04:38.180 accurate answers. And so let us be patient while the RCMP conducts their investigation, confirms their

00:04:44.460 evidence, and then I'm absolutely confident they'll be transparent and forthcoming with that once that

00:04:50.900 important work has been done. Okay. So this is starting to feel like it's being politicized,

00:04:55.940 Leo. Why do you think that is? And why is it that the RCMP commissioner can't feel this simple

00:05:00.980 question? Why? The only reason I can come up with, when the question is asked and she immediately

00:05:08.840 turns to Minister Blair, it's almost as though she's seeking some sort of permission to answer,

00:05:14.720 which struck me as very odd. She should not be that much under the thumb of the minister for sure.

00:05:21.240 The second part of that is, why do I think it's been politicized? I think because whatever happened

00:05:27.820 here, whatever the circumstances were that have yet to become public, it doesn't fit the political

00:05:33.680 narrative. Well, you know, regardless of the political narrative that they were trying to put out

00:05:38.940 on Monday, we did have, we saw some investigative reporting from news outlets across the country. So

00:05:45.260 the Toronto Star reported that Wartman did have priors for assault and for speeding. He also had

00:05:51.100 run-ins with the police over a property dispute with a relative and a sort of bizarre incident,

00:05:55.560 which I think everyone should take with a grain of salt because it was reported by Frank Magazine,

00:05:59.660 which is a tabloid known for lying. But it was reported also in the Toronto Star that there was

00:06:04.840 a bizarre incident where he basically tried to lock police officers into a parking lot that apparently he

00:06:11.240 owned and he tried to chain them in and they had to call for backup. That was just in February of this year.

00:06:16.040 So really the story that we're starting to see of this individual is someone who has had, you know,

00:06:23.680 certainly some run-ins, some concerning things. The Toronto Star also reported that because of a 2001 assault,

00:06:32.700 which was carried out against a 15-year-old young man where Gabrielle Wartman was allegedly drunk

00:06:38.300 and assaulted him outside of Wartman's denture clinic in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, which admittedly

00:06:43.300 was over 20 years ago, but still because of that, he was required not to own, possess or carry a weapon,

00:06:48.960 ammunition or explosive substances, and that he was required for assessment and counseling and anger

00:06:55.380 management. So this does provide a window, Leo, into who this guy was. And so, you know, I guess I just

00:07:04.380 keep coming back to this question, but, you know, it seems like at some point he was prohibited from

00:07:09.380 owning firearms. Would that have influenced his PAL application, his licensing application?

00:07:17.800 Definitely. The other thing that's interesting to note here is that he received a conditional

00:07:22.500 discharge for that conviction, which typically means that the judge will assign several conditions

00:07:28.600 to his probation period, his release period. And as long as he fulfills those conditions, then he can

00:07:35.740 take his discharge, and then there wouldn't be a formal record of the conviction. We don't know

00:07:43.740 how long the firearm prohibition was for Wartman. We do know that, for sure, that the judge ordered the

00:07:52.960 firearm prohibition at that time. Now, years later, even if he gets the conditional discharge,

00:07:58.000 that information is still available to police. And I would think it would certainly have a bearing on

00:08:04.620 any independent application, even years later, for a PAL. So, again, you know, perhaps are the

00:08:13.680 RCMP being defensive because his application should have been rejected, but it wasn't? Or do you think

00:08:20.580 that, again, they're just being tight-lipped because, you know, we've seen it so many times, Leo,

00:08:25.260 you know, after the Danforth shooting that was carried out by someone who seemed to be a radical

00:08:30.540 Islamist, you know, ISIS took responsibility. The police wouldn't even release the name of the

00:08:35.180 suspect. You know, they wouldn't comment at all. And we saw it again with another shooting that

00:08:40.660 happened in the Maritimes where they refused to release any information. Is this just part of this

00:08:46.460 kind of routine act that the RCMP kind of don't trust Canadians and they don't want us to have

00:08:52.440 information? Or do you think that there is something like a cover-up, like, you know, this guy's

00:08:56.600 application should have been rejected, but somehow it wasn't? Or maybe he never had a license in the

00:09:01.340 first place? And again, they're just playing politics.

00:09:04.440 All of those things are possible. But in my opinion, I think what it really comes down to is

00:09:10.160 the liberal government's gun policy and what they're planning to do and how this doesn't fit

00:09:19.020 their narrative and they're trying to figure out how to message it. That's my best guess. Having said

00:09:23.580 that, and just to clarify, the Danforth shooting was the Toronto Police Service, not the RCMP. But

00:09:29.300 the RCMP are notoriously tight-lipped. And I've had countless battles with them on their media

00:09:36.120 relations strategy and why they don't just stand up in front of the cameras and Canadians and tell

00:09:41.620 them the truth, what they know. Nobody will ever come back. All you have to do, in fact, if you say

00:09:46.140 something wrong, just say upon further investigation, we've determined that this

00:09:50.240 initial information wasn't accurate and here's the accurate information. It's not hard. But they're

00:09:57.280 just so reluctant to do that. And again, the force has been politicized. There's no question. I think

00:10:04.600 Commissioner Lucky is firmly under the thumb of the minister. And I wish that weren't the case,

00:10:10.940 but I think that is exactly the case. Yeah, this has become like a big pet peeve of mine. And yeah,

00:10:17.000 you're right, it was Toronto Police Services. But there have been many instances where the RCMP

00:10:21.340 have done the same. It's part of a culture, I believe, in Canadian policing. Because when something

00:10:27.840 happens in the United States, I mean, you could say maybe they go the opposite way, where they release

00:10:33.280 too much information. Well, they'll release things like body cam video the next day or two days after

00:10:39.500 the shooting. Yeah. I mean, it's so much different. It's so transparent. And I really appreciate,

00:10:45.940 especially as a journalist trying to, you know, piece the puzzles together myself, you know,

00:10:51.680 pieces together. But really, I mean, I think it does come down to the fact that they don't trust

00:10:58.980 Canadians. And I hear from sort of rank and file cops, you know, anonymously sending me Facebook

00:11:04.660 messages or WhatsApp messages, complaining about this and saying that they wish that they could

00:11:09.100 speak publicly because there's so much the public doesn't know and deserves to know. I want to loop

00:11:14.360 that into another question that I had, Leo, because one of the critiques that's been popping up is about

00:11:20.040 the lack of communication with the public over this active shooting situation. I guess that it spanned

00:11:25.780 over 13 hours. So one of the things that sort of popped up is, you know, the police services have

00:11:33.040 this system, the emergency alert system or Amber Alert system, where they can instantly send text

00:11:38.380 messages to everybody in a region. We get them here in Ontario with some frequency, you know, for

00:11:44.200 missing people's, missing persons reports and that kind of thing. You know, we even got them with

00:11:50.260 coronavirus saying, hey, stay inside. You know, the whole system is designed to protect public

00:11:55.720 health or public safety and to prevent deaths. And so the question is, you know, why wasn't that

00:12:01.840 system used in this case? You know, why not get as much information out to the public as possible?

00:12:08.160 Do you have any idea as to why they weren't using the Amber Alert system to warn people in Nova Scotia?

00:12:13.860 Well, Amber Alert, for one thing, is designed for missing children. So it would go separate from that

00:12:19.040 through the emergency management people. Most provinces have such a system. In BC, where I live,

00:12:26.040 for example, it's, you know, everyone's been talking for years about earthquake preparedness. So they've

00:12:31.520 got that system in for earthquakes or tsunamis or anything along those lines. But it can be used for

00:12:38.320 anything that's considered urgent that the public needs to know about it. My understanding is that the

00:12:44.460 emergency management folks in Nova Scotia knew what was going on. They even called an extra staff

00:12:50.000 to deal with it. And they can't initiate until they get the police request. And they never received

00:12:56.380 the police request. Interesting. Because one of the things that stuck out to me was the fact that the

00:13:03.320 RCMP Nova Scotia Twitter account was very active. And they were sending out information to warn the

00:13:09.340 public. They sent this tweet out, which we can put on the screen. This one went out at 920 in the

00:13:16.080 morning on Sunday. And it said, Gabrielle Wartman may be driving what appears to be an RCMP vehicle

00:13:21.180 and may be wearing an RCMP uniform. There's one difference between his car and RCMP vehicles.

00:13:27.680 The car number, the suspect's car number is 28B11 behind rear passenger window. If you see 28B11,

00:13:34.220 call 911 immediately. Well, that seems like a pretty urgent call. But why put it on Twitter? No one's on

00:13:38.980 Twitter. No one's going on Twitter. You know, a small portion of the population is using that. And

00:13:43.980 perhaps if they had put that out through a text message, one of the victims, for instance, Lillian

00:13:50.900 Hislop, was out walking her dog. Now, perhaps if she'd gotten a text message saying, you know,

00:13:57.260 there's a crazy killer in your area, stay inside. And she could avoid some of those really unnecessary

00:14:04.620 casualties. Not to blame it on the police, because obviously hindsight is 20-20. But

00:14:09.100 you know, do you think using Twitter was the best way to get the message out? Or again,

00:14:14.420 do you think that they should have acted quicker and used that emergency alert system?

00:14:18.780 Well, they didn't get the message out per se using Twitter because media picks up on that

00:14:23.020 and they'll rebroadcast. And certainly the photograph of the suspect was readily available on Sunday

00:14:28.580 morning. So they did somewhat get the message out. But you're entirely correct. They didn't

00:14:33.800 use all available tools. Why? Well, I don't know. I can speculate a little bit. I mean,

00:14:38.940 certainly we both know, Candice, that there's been a couple of actuations of the Amber Alert

00:14:44.080 system in Ontario in the middle of the night, and people have complained about it, saying,

00:14:48.080 why do you need to wake us up? Or, you know, my cell phone went off at, you know, two o'clock

00:14:52.280 in the morning sort of thing. So maybe the RCMP are a little gun shy about doing that type

00:14:56.940 of thing. And that would have been the operation or incident commander who made that call.

00:15:01.280 Was that, in fact, what a concern was? I don't know. I'm speculating a little bit.

00:15:07.000 The other thing I will say is that anytime you've got multiple crime scene incidents like

00:15:11.560 this, especially one where people are being shot and killed, the response is very fast moving

00:15:20.700 and is trying to keep, for an incident commander, trying to keep track of everything that's going

00:15:26.040 on and, you know, make the decisions he has to make, is very, very trying and very stressful,

00:15:32.180 as I'm sure you will imagine. It might have simply been something, a step he overlooked.

00:15:37.340 Interesting. Well, maybe they'll be more, you know, willing to use that system in the future if,

00:15:45.520 you know, hopefully, God willing, there's not an incident like this ever again in Canada. But,

00:15:49.420 you know, I think that is something that would be worth looking into. Just to touch on some of the

00:15:55.720 content in that tweet, reports said that Gorman was essentially impersonating a police officer,

00:16:01.880 pulling people over. He was wearing what looked like an authentic police uniform and driving a

00:16:06.940 cruiser that we saw in that picture. It looks exactly like a police cruiser, especially to most

00:16:12.600 people who don't spend a lot of time looking at police cruisers. So I think one of the questions

00:16:16.860 is, you know, this, this, these uniforms in this police car, obviously, you know, they're not easy

00:16:22.700 to come by. You'd have to sort of, I think, know someone who had, had a police uniform in order to

00:16:27.460 get one. So what are you hearing? How did, how did Gorman obtain these, this uniform in this police car?

00:16:35.220 What I'm hearing is that he was an RCMP aficionado, as even a mention of it in his,

00:16:42.960 uh, his high school yearbook. Um, I, I believe, uh, from what I've been told that he was a collector

00:16:49.480 of memorabilia, RCMP police shoulder patches, uh, that you can get decommissioned things. Uh,

00:16:57.560 and, and certainly, uh, the RCMP has licensed a whole lot of products, sweatshirts and hats and all

00:17:03.280 that sort of stuff. Uh, you can simply walk online by, you know, by a police ball cap with the RCMP

00:17:10.340 insignia in the front of it. And that would look like a police hat. Um, he, uh, if he's collecting

00:17:16.860 this stuff over the years, that would seem to me to be what that was he was wearing.

00:17:22.720 Interesting. Again, if he's, if you're a collector, you can go and go to any police agency pretty much

00:17:28.640 anywhere and, uh, ask them if they've got somebody who, uh, you know, collectors trade patches and all

00:17:35.080 that sort of stuff, getting RCMP shoulder patches would have been quite easy. And then just getting

00:17:39.800 a khaki shirt and putting them on the instant RCMP officer shirt.

00:17:46.500 Interesting. Yeah. I want, I do wonder if there were, will make these kinds of things harder to

00:17:51.440 obtain or try to crack down on them. And in the wake of this, just because, uh, obviously part of

00:17:56.140 the reason he was able to, to take so many lives, uh, was because people thought that they were

00:18:01.180 dealing with an actual legit police officer and not a deranged, um, evil individual on a killing

00:18:06.880 spree. Well, Leo, thank you so much. I feel like we've, uh, you know, you've helped, uh, me understand

00:18:12.440 a little bit more about the investigation and what's going on behind it. I hope, I hope that the

00:18:16.820 liberals don't try to politicize this too much and turn this into a gun grab against law abiding

00:18:22.040 Canadians. Because I mean, just a cursory look at the story shows this individual was not someone

00:18:27.580 who was a law abiding person. He broke, uh, just absolute huge number of laws. Um, and so punishing

00:18:35.780 law abiding gun owners doesn't seem like the right response. And hopefully there's not a knee jerk

00:18:40.520 reaction. Uh, you know, just final word to you. Do you think there will be, or do you think that

00:18:45.600 this will pass? You're, you're, you're a lot less cynical perhaps than I am. I think that's exactly

00:18:50.700 what they'll do here. Uh, they're going to bring in some sort of legislation, uh, and it's going to be,

00:18:55.420 the only thing it'll target is our legal gun owners. And they're not the ones who are committing

00:18:59.700 these, these crimes and problems. Um, especially if in this case, he obtained weapons illegally,

00:19:05.220 there's not a statute you can write anywhere that could prevent that. Uh, the other part of that,

00:19:11.560 I suppose is that the, um, it seems that he had several weapons, but one of the weapons we know

00:19:17.740 he did get was Constable Stevenson's sidearm, uh, after he killed her, he took her sidearm and two

00:19:23.820 magazines full of ammunition, uh, with him. Um, and I believe that was the weapon he had in his hand

00:19:29.900 when he engaged police at the Irving gas station, uh, in Enfield. Um, so, but we don't know more than

00:19:37.360 that in terms of what other weapons he might've had or type of weapons. Um, I think, I suspect the

00:19:43.700 weapon he engaged Constable Stevenson with was a long barreled weapon because even though she was

00:19:48.280 wearing ballistic nylon protection, uh, you know, by way of a pest, uh, she was shot in the chest.

00:19:54.480 So it had to go through the ballistic nylon, which would suggest a long barrel weapon.

00:19:59.680 Interesting. I know I said last question, but, but so a long barrel gun, would that be what, um,

00:20:05.940 proponents of gun control would typically describe as an assault weapon or, or would that just be any,

00:20:10.580 any long form shotgun?

00:20:11.580 My Louisville slugger in my closet can be an assault weapon. It's, it's a ridiculous description

00:20:19.540 used by people who are themselves ridiculous. They know nothing about the subject and, uh,

00:20:25.700 they just, they knee jerk all the time. And Justin Trudeau is just such a person.

00:20:30.320 All right, Leo Knight, thank you so much for joining us. Leo is a Truman Fellow and a former

00:20:35.640 police officer. Leo, we really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for tuning in. This has been

00:20:40.480 The Candace Malcolm Show and I am Candace Malcolm.

The Candice Malcolm Show - April 22, 2020

Unanswered questions about the Nova Scotia shooter

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