Jordan: By the time you listen to this, it will have been almost 48 hours since the carnage ended and police still aren’t sure how many people are dead. It’s at least 19. It’s the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history. We don’t have a motive. The surest piece of information we have right now about the tragedy in Nova Scotia this weekend is that it’s going to be weeks and months, not hours or days, before we learn the full story. For now, we will learn more peace by horrifying peace.
News Clip: The gunman, who at one point was dressed as a police officer and driving a lookalike RCMP cruiser, went on a killing spree in multiple communities, shooting people in their homes and setting fires. We believe there may be victims still within the remains of those homes. A gunman claimed the lives of at least 18 people. Among them, a woman in uniform, Constable Heidi Stevenson of the RCMP. Earlier this afternoon, I met with Heidi’s family and there are no words to describe their pain. I know this is a challenging time for Nova Scotians and that there are so many unanswered questions. We are working hard to find out as much information as possible in the days and weeks to come.
Jordan: Today we’ll try to do what the entire country is doing. We’ll try to comprehend what happened. To grapple with the toll of the shooting spree that stretches across a province. To mourn the victims and ask why. And we’ll do that all remotely. And that too, is a devastating part of this attack. Think of how we have in the past come together as communities and cities and provinces, and as a country to mourn these kinds of horrors and to offer our support to the victims, the survivors and their families. None of that is possible now, not a pat on the shoulder or a hug. So today we’ll tell you what we do and don’t know about a tragedy taking place inside a tragedy. And what comes for Nova Scotia now. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings, this is The Big Story. Dan Ahlstrand is the News Director at NEWS957 in Halifax. He joins us now. Hi, Dan.
Dan: Hi Jordan. How are you?
Jordan: I’m all right. So I hope you guys are doing okay. Can you just. First of all, the bare bones for people who’ve been seeing a flood of news. Can you tell us what happened this weekend? What do we know? And what’s changing now?
Dan: Well, the genesis of the whole thing, Jordan, began on Saturday evening RCMP up in Portapique, which is a community on the Bay of Fundy in Colchester County, Nova Scotia. Very close to Truro for those that I may be familiar with the map. RCMP went to a weapons call at a residence in Portapique, or very close to it. And when they arrived, they said that they found what they were describing as multiple casualties and the call continued. It wasn’t until about eight o’clock in the morning on Sunday that we started to learn a little bit more. The RCMP on their social media site, the Nova Scotia RCMP, put out a tweet that this was an active shooter situation and asked anybody in the Portapique area or in Great Village, which is a community very close to it, or the surrounding area to lock their doors and not to go outside, as they were in the middle of an operation. That kind of started everything going social media wise, and for everybody around there. They began to pursuit of a suspect that suspect, according to RCMP had a vehicle that resembled an RCMP cruiser. And was traveling North from Portapique, in through Colchester County. Later on Saturday morning– Sunday morning, rather, he was spotted in a village called Glenholme near a camp ground in that vehicle. And then shortly after that, RCMP say that he switched vehicles into a silver Chevy Tracker and began heading southbound on highway 102, which is the highway that leads directly to Halifax. About 40 minutes later, we got a tweet from the RCMP that a suspect had been in custody, effectively ending the search. And then, that’s when we started to learn a little bit more about what the extent of this thing was.
Jordan: What was the first indication on Sunday morning to– well, we would soon discover the extent of it. How did it break?
Dan: Well, it was a bit bizarre. I’ve been doing this for about 25 years now. Obviously we’re in the age of social media. So this kind of unfolded on the Nova Scotia RCMP social media site. They were using it to communicate with people. They weren’t putting out press releases like we would have seen in the past, or having a spokesperson calling local media. It was, it was all unfolding on their social media site. And they were updating the residents and the media and everybody else as this thing was going on. It was almost a play by play. Which, to me was something I’ve never seen before.
Jordan: How did we learn just how bad this was? When did the full extent of it become clear?
Dan: I think that we all kind of assumed early on– I know I did– that this was going to be a tragic event, just by the way that the police were acting on social media, and that it was an active shooter situation for quite some time. Now, at that point, I don’t think anybody was thinking that there was going to be the extent of the casualties with 18– at least 18– victims and the shooter ending up dying as well. We knew it was bad, but we didn’t know until six o’clock when the RCMP held their first news conference after they had to put this chase, I guess, to rest the extent, the full extent of just how bad this was.
Jordan: What can you tell me about how this was able to continue for so long? I mean, usually we hear about a shooting and a lockdown and, you know, we can find the guy and it’s over. But he made it to so many different places.
Dan: RCMP said that he had a, and they called it a mockup, of an RCMP cruiser that he had built and had in his possession. Not a law against it, apparently. The justice minister of Nova Scotia said that there’s no law against doing that. There is a law, however, against dressing up as a police officer and the RCMP confirming in their news conference that this shooter, or this alleged shooter, I guess, was dressed up in a partial or almost a complete uniform. So, it gave him the ability to, until they figured that out, to move about looking like a police officer. So that would have made it more difficult for the responding officers, I would assume, to discern who this person was and, you know, they wouldn’t be looking for an RCMP type vehicle to be leaving the scene.
Jordan: What do we know about the shooter right now?
Dan: We don’t know much. We know he made dentures for a living. He had some property in Portapique. He had an office in the greater HRM area in Dartmouth. But other than that, not much. I mean, there’s an awful lot of speculation out there about this individual, but nothing sort of official from RCMP. They’re keeping their cards very close to their chest with regards to any kind of descriptions or any motivations that this individual may have had before and during and after this incident.
Jordan: You mentioned that there’s been a lot of talk on social media and a lot of people making guesses. What happens when there’s this kind of vacuum of information, because– and I speak for people in the rest of the country, you know, we knew something horrifying was happening and various outlets have pieced together what went down in the bigger scheme of things, I guess. But like, I just, I feel like I don’t know the details. I don’t know, you know the what and the how.
Dan: And I think that you’re not alone in thinking that way, but I had a conversation earlier today with the public safety or the– sorry, the justice minister of Nova Scotia, who is a former RCMP officer himself. And he said that the RCMP are embarking upon probably, if not the, one of the biggest, most complex police investigations in the history of Nova Scotia. There are 16 different crime scenes with regards to this. So I think that the RCMP are trying to be very careful with what they’re saying, and to not compromise their investigation. But you’re right. You know, we always want to know more. It’s just human nature, particularly as a journalist, you always want to know more and you want to get that information out.
Jordan: What do we know about the victims of this? I know one of them was an RCMP officer, but who were the other ones? Were they connected to the shooter? Was this random? What do we know about that?
Dan: RCMP in their news conference earlier said that the victims– some of the victims were known to the suspect and some were not. Some were targeted, they said, and some were random. So, it kinda goes all over the place with regards to that. There was no, at least at this point, they haven’t identified a real sort of motivation behind the whole thing. But there are five houses in the area that were burned down. And they have been unable to, at least this point, get all the way through the rubble of those houses. So that’s why the RCMP are saying that we may see even a higher death toll than we already have.
Jordan: Can you backtrack a little and kind of take me through this? So it starts in Portapique, and you mentioned that he moved to a couple of locations, where the houses that were burned, and do we know what happened there?
Dan: They have not said a where the houses that were burned officially. I do believe it was early on because he was, after that, piecing together, just based on the information that they gave us, as the pursuit was going on, I don’t think that he stopped sort of moving in a vehicle, but again, that’s not confirmed by the RCMP. I would assume that some of those houses were in the– sort of where it all began, kinda in the community of Portapique.
Jordan: What was it like on Sunday when this news was breaking? And, you know, to your point, there weren’t any press conferences until much later and people were trying to figure out what’s going on, where is this guy? And all they have is a tweet essentially. What were you guys doing?
Dan: Oh, we were trying to get as much information as we possibly could out to people. Obviously everybody wanted to know where this person was, and I think there was, at least speaking personally, there was more and more concern for me as we watched where this car that was carrying this individual was going. I mean, Portapique, is a good hour and 25, hour and 30 minutes sort of north-west of Halifax. So I mean close, but not really close to the radio station and to, you know, our families here in Halifax. But as this pursuit started o occur, and they were posting more information where this individual was being spotted, he was getting closer and closer and closer and closer to Halifax. In fact, the whole thing came to an end in a community called Enfield at a truck stop gas station, which for those of you who are familiar with the geography of Halifax, is essentially at the airport. So, as this was getting closer, I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that people living and listening to us here in HRM were growing more and more concerned that this individual was traveling on the major highway that leads into HRM.
Jordan: I’m wondering about the community itself and how it’s dealing with not knowing anything. You know, obviously it’s an anxious time anyway, you know?
Dan: Well, the, the community, I mean, there’s dribs and drabs that are coming out. We’ve learned yesterday obviously, that there was an RCMP officer that was killed who was very involved in her community. That one is hitting home with a lot of people. We also learned today that two VON nurses that were working up there were killed. A couple that were corrections officers were killed. A couple that owned a propane business up there were also listed as the casualties. Nova Scotians are morning. And it was interesting that, this being the pandemic that we’re in, and also not being able to gather in groups over five and having to stay two meters apart, it hit dead centre of the provincial announcement today from the premier and from the medical officer of health on the COVID situation, where they had to come out and tell people that, you know, it’s awful and you need to mourn and you need to reach out and we need to support people, but we also have to, you know, abide by the rules so that we don’t start to spread COVID more than it’s being spread. So that, on top of all of the other things that are bad with this situation, is compounding things, I think.
Jordan: Yeah. I was going to ask what people are doing to kind of connect with one another. Cause I know they can’t come together to mourn. And you know, speaking of the last thing that happened in our city, in Toronto, when you had, you know, the van attack a couple of years ago, people came together and you know, would lay flowers and gather in groups, and it helped the city. And what do you do virtually to kind of replace that?
Dan: Well there are people that are trying to come up with solutions for that. There’s a virtual vigil being planned now for Friday. I don’t know what the form of that’s going to be, if it’s going to be a gigantic Zoom conference, or how the technology is going to work with that. I can tell you, though, that today people were outside, trying to stay two metres apart, and they ringed a road that comes into an RCMP detachment, not necessarily in that area, just South of the city– well, still part of the city– in the Upper Tantallon, during a shift change for the RCMP. At RCMP headquarters in Dartmouth, there was a flag that they’ve posted on the fence out in front of the RCMP detachment. And there wasn’t a lot, but there were a number of people that had been placing flowers at that site. I don’t know if you remember when we had the shootings in Moncton, that police station became just absolutely inundated with flowers. And, you know, at least at this point, it hasn’t happened here because people are trying to grieve as best they can, but they know that we’re all still subject to social distancing rules.
Jordan: Before I let you go, how are you guys? And how’s the province doing, your city doing? And what comes next? What do you guys need in the coming days after this?
Dan: I said it earlier today to my crew here is that, you know, we’ve always told everybody that Nova Scotians are made of a strong stock. And I think that we are made of a strong stock, and I think that Nova Scotians will, once they get past the initial shock of this whole whole event, and they get at least a chance to start to figure out what this was all about and get a chance to at least process it, I think that you’ll see them come together in droves to support the families that are going to be impacted by this– well, they already are impacted by this– moving forward. I think that answers will probably help. I think that, you know, if we hear reasons, motivations, some sort of, I dunno if closure’s the right word, but some sort of reason why. I think that’s the biggest question people want to know is why. And hopefully the police investigation will tell us that. It’s going to change the province. I don’t think there’s any doubt of that. I don’t know if we can go as far and say that we lost her innocence on Saturday, but it certainly will have an impact on this province, probably forever. Because, I mean, these things don’t happen in Nova Scotia, right? This is, you know, we’re Nova Scotia. This is where everybody is safe and everybody is, you know, it’s small. This isn’t a big city. There is not all the big city troubles that come with that. But I think people are going to be forever changed moving forward.
Jordan: Well, thanks for this Dan. I hope you guys– I hope we all get the answers we want and you guys stay safe and I’m sending you lots of love from the rest of Canada.
Dan: Thanks Jordan. Appreciate it.
Jordan: Dan Ahlstrand is the News Director at NEWS957 in Halifax. Our hearts go out to all of Nova Scotia today. That was The Big Story. We have more for you at thebigstorypodcast.ca. You can always find us on Twitter at @thebigstoryFPN and of course we’re in your podcast player, whatever it is. We are also at frequencypodcastnetwork.com with a whole bunch of other podcasts that you might enjoy. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.
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